Rick Warren - The Reality of Hell—Part Three

Are Heaven and Hell real places? And what are they like?

Today?

On Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the Bible Teaching Ministry of

Rick Warren, we continue his series called Eternal Realities, Heaven

and Hell. In these lessons, Rick shares what the Bible

says about heaven and Hell and how you can be

absolutely certain you'll go to heaven. And now let's continue

with the final part of the message called the reality

of Hell.

Now, what is hell like? Well, think about this. If

it's total separation from God, then it's the exact opposite

of everything God is. And we know, for instance, that

God is love, that is his nature. God is love.

What would it be to live without God completely? It

means no love. Now, the Bible says there is no

fear in love. Perfect love casts out all fear. The

opposite of love is fear. You know what it means

to live without love in your life. It means you

are scared to death all the time. Hell, it means

you're lonely all the time. That's hell. One of the

big myths about hell is that you know, in hell

it's just gonna be a big party for all of

the people who like to party. Friends you're not gonna

see no one would see anybody else in hell. It's

total separation from God and everybody else. There are no

relationships in hell. There are no friends in hell. It's

total a looneless. I think of that movie where the

guy some space movie where he's in space on a

space walk and somebody snips the thing and he floats

off into eternity by himself. That would be hell. To

spend the rest of eternity all alone and all afraid

because there's no love, there's no friendship. You won't see anybody.

You wouldn't see anybody in hell. And by the way,

there's another myth that Satan is gonna be in charge

of Hell. Wrong. By the way, Satan's not in hell

right now. You may not know that. The Bible says

he on earth. Satan's not in Hell yet, He's going

to be sent there, And when he's there, he's not

gonna be in charge of it like another kingdom. He's

gonna be punished, and nobody else is gonna see him.

He's not gonna see anybody else. Now. God is love,

so it's no love there. God is light, so hell

is complete darkness. God is good so there's absolutely nothing

good in hell. God is life, so that means it'll

be eternal death. God is gracious. That means there's no

place of grace there. Friends, you don't want to choose hell,

and I hope after today you will never again say

to ever anybody go to Hell. I don't want anybody

to go to hell, no matter how much they hurt me.

And I hope you'll never again tell a joke on hell,

because it's no joke. I beg you to accept the

good news. So how do I avoid hell? Is there

a way for me to absolutely know for certain I'm

going to heaven the good news? Yep, you can absolutely

confidently know that you're going to heaven. The Bible tells

us how to do it. Now, notice the next verse,

how do I settle my destiny? John says this in

one John five thirteen. I write this to you who

believe and the name of the Son of God, that's

the door. Jesus. I'm writing to you who believe in

the name of the Son of God, so that you

may know, not guess, not wonder, not hope, that you

may know was settled and absolute knowledge that you already

have life. Yes, eternal life circle. The word no, God says,

I don't want you guessing. If you go out to

the mall today and you ask somebody, hey, where are

you going when you die, they're gonna say, well, I

hope I'm going to heaven. Friends, Hope's not enough. It's

too important. It's too important to not know for certain.

You see, only a fool would go all through life

unprepared for what we know is inevitable death. Do you

know a recent statistic? This is amazing. The recent statistics

shows that the mortality rate in the world is one

hundred percent. You're gonna die, so am I someday? I

don't know when. Hope, it's a long time from now,

but you're gonna die. Uh. And it's one of Only

a fool would go all the way through like on, Yeah,

I know I need to decide this, but I'll put

it off. I'll put it off and put it off.

I'll put it off. Friend, you don't know if you're

gonna drop dead tomorrow. I could walk out of here

and have a heart attack in the next hour before

the evening services. I'm not guaranteed next week, next month,

next year, much less next hour. Why would you put

off something you know is inevitable and could come at

any time. You need to settle this today. And when

we finished today, we're gonna pray a prayer that I

want everybody to pray, so that everybody here knows for

sure you're going to heaven because God is paid for

everything possible for your ticket. It's already been paid for

by Jesus Christ. So he says, I want you to

trust me, and I want you to know that you

can know absolutely certainly of eternal life. So how do

I settle it? Well, your ticket to heaven is in

Jesus Christ. Look on the back of your outline first

John five eleven and twelve. Let's read it aloud together.

God has given us eternal life, and this life is

in his son. He who has the Son has life,

and he who does not have the Son of God

does not have life. That's about as clear as you

can get now, friends. This is why Christmas and Easter

are so important. If Jesus hadn't come at Christmas, and

he hadn't died on the cross and then come back

to life three days later on Easter, we wouldn't be

having this discussion. We would all be hopeless. There would

be no hope for us. Heaven is perfect and we're not.

But God came up with a plan and as a

plan that somebody would die for all my sins and

all your sins, and he would do it himself so

that we, by his grace, could go to heaven. And

that's why Christmas and Easter are so important. Look at

this next verse. The cross is the answer to our problem,

it says in Colossians one two twenty one to twenty two.

At one time you were separated from God, and you

were his enemies in your minds, and the evil things

you did were against God. In other words, God, I'm

going to run my life. Nobody has the right to

tell me what's right or wrong. Nobody has the right

to tell me what to do. I'm going to make

my own choices, he says. You know, you rebelled just

like Satan did. But now God has made you his

friends again. And He did this through Christ's death in

the body, when he died on the cross, so that

he might bring you into God's presence. What's God's presence heaven?

And when he brings you in, how are you going

to be it? Says, as people who are holy with

no wrong and of which God can nothing of which

God can judge you. He said, I'm going to wipe

the slate clean. This is the etcho sketch verse of

the Bible. You make all the mess, you turn it

upside down, you shake it, and it comes up clean

and pure again. He says, that's what I'm going to

do in your life. Now. The most famous verse in

the Bible is John three sixteen. And you know, each

week here to saddleback, we we memorize a verse. So

John three point sixteen is going to be our memory

verse since it's a little bit longer. Many of you

have already got this one down, but we're going to

take two weeks on this one because this one is

a little bit longer than some of the ones you

were doing. But let's read it together. Remember you say

the verse, the address at the beginning, at the end,

So let's read it aloud. John three sixteen. For God

so the world that he gave his only begotten son,

that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have

everlasting life. And where's that verse found? John three sixteen,

Chapter three, Verse sixteen. Now this is the verse that

you see the guy with colored hair standing in the

end zone holding up at all the ball games. John

three sixteen. It's the most important verse in the Bible.

If you only get one verse, you want to get

this one, because this one is your ticket to heaven. Now,

notice it says again, let's read it again. For God

so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son,

that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have

everlasting life. Now notice I've underlined six words, God's only son, perish,

eternal life. And the first letter that g os p

e l. That's the gospel, and what is gospel. Gospel

is the Old English word for good news. That's all

it means. The gospel is good news. When you hear

about gospel music, that means music that's about what Jesus

did for us. When you hear about gospel preaching, it

means somebody's teaching what Jesus Christ did for us. That

God's only son came and gave his life for us

so that we would not perish but have everlasting life.

And we're going to memorize this verse together over the

next two weeks. Let me summarize what that verse teaches

in four words ab CD, and again listen as if

your life depends on it, because it does. This is

how you walk through the door named Jesus to get

into heaven. Ab CD. A is admit. The first thing

I do is I admit I need a savior to

get to heaven. Now that means I admit I'm not perfect.

Heaven's perfect and I'm not. I admit I've blown it,

I've made mistakes, I'm flawed, I've sinned, and we just

did admit it. We own up to it. Now this

is a hard one for some guys. Why because of pride.

So there's one thing that'll keep you out of heaven

your ego, your pride, your unwillingness to say I need

God in my life because people say, well, I'm a

self made man. I've noticed that a self made man

tends to worship his maker. That's deep, you, guys, that's

really deep. And in order for you to get to heaven,

you have to humble yourself. You have to admit God

is God and I'm not and I need a savior.

I can't earn my way to heaven. I can't pay

my way to heaven. I can't be good enough to

get to heaven. I need a savior. Now, believe me,

if you didn't need a savior, God wouldn't have wasted

the time sending Jesus to die on the cross. If

there was any other way for you to get to heaven.

Don't you think he would have done a less painful

way than come himself and die on the cross for you.

There was no other way for you to get into heaven.

And so first I admit that I need a savior. Second,

the bee is I believe that Jesus died for me.

I believe that Jesus died for me, and believe means

more than head knowledge. It means I trust in, I

rely on, I surrender to, I commit myself to. It's

more than head knowledge. Look at this verse up here

on the screen. Romans ten to nine says this. If

you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and you

believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,

that's what Easter is all about. You will be saved. Now,

what does it mean to confess you the mouth Jesus

is Lord. I mean we don't have lords and ladies today.

We don't kings and queens and vassals and counts. We're

gonna have a feudal system. We're a democracy. So what

does it mean? Jesus is lord. Lord is just the

old English word for boss, master, the guy in control.

It means to say, Jesus, you're the chairman of the

board of my life. Jesus you're the CEO. You're the boss.

You call the shots. I'm putting on a sign over

me that says under new management. That's what it means

to make Jesus the lord of your life. Say I'm

under new manager. I'm no longer calling the shots in

my life. Jesus Christ, you are the manager, the lord

of my life. So I admit I need a savior

to get heaven. I believe that Jesus died for me.

I confess him his Lord, and see I commit myself

completely to him. I commit myself completely. Say, Lord, I

want to do your plan for my life. I want

to do the purpose you put me here on earth

to do, not my purpose. I'm gonna go not my

way anymore. I'm gonna go Jesus way. I'm gonna go

God's way. I'm gonna go the way that God created

me to go, I commit myself to you. Now that

commitment you need to do it publicly. You need to

make a public commitment to Jesus Christ. I mean, how

about if I said to my wife, honey, I'm committed

to you, so let's get married, but let's don't tell

anybody about it. What kind of commitm would that be?

She goes, Hey, buster, you ashamed of me? You won't

tell anybody about me. If you won't tell anybody about me,

then you're not really committed to me. A private commitment

is no commitment at all. You got to make it public.

So I stood up one day in public and I said,

I do in front of a bunch of people, and

I wear a ring everywhere I go. And this says,

ladies don't even think about it. And I'm sure so

many ladies do think about it. What fantasy world am

I living in? You know? But the point is I

was because I'm proud of my wife and I love her,

and I am committed to my life till death do

us part. Now, what is the wedding ring of the

Christian life? Well, there are two ways, baptism and joining

a church. Now being baptized. Join a church doesn't make

you a believer. It shows that you are. It's a

wedding ring. This ring doesn't make me married. It just

shows that I am. Jesus said this. Look up here

on the screen. He said, if anyone acknowledges me publicly

here on earth, I will openly acknowledge that person before

my father, which is in heaven. But if anyone denies

me here on earth, I will deny that person before

my father in heaven. Are you ashamed of Jesus Christ?

Saybody know you're a believer? Does anybody know you've stepped

across the line? Have you been baptized? If you haven't

been baptized, what are you waiting on? We baptize after

every single service here at Saddleback Church. We've baptized over

twenty thousand believers in the last ten years who publicly say,

I'm not ashamed to say I'm a believer in Christ.

It's my coming out party now. In a lot of churches,

they have come forward invitation alter call Billy Graham style.

Will they invite people to publicly come forward? Here at

this church, for twenty eight years, we've used this little

card and every week. We invite people on the back

of the card to check I'm committing my life to Christ,

or I'm recommitting my life to Christ, or i want

to be baptized, or I want to join the church

or whatever. And this is a way of doing it.

It's a way of making it public. Jesus said, if

you're ashamed of me, then I'll be ashamed of you

in heaven. But he said, if you're a stand up

in front of me publicly, I'll stand up for you

in heaven. Another way you can stand up publicly is

join a church. Now, friends, it didn't matter which church

you join, as long as it's a good Bible teaching church.

I could give you one hundred really good churches. I

could recommend within twenty five minutes. The Saddleback. We're not

in competition with any church. We're all on the same team.

These guys who passed these other churches, they're my good friends.

I'm actually in a small group with a bunch of them,

so we're not in competition. Just find a church. If

not Saddleback, you need to choose one and just say

I'm not gonna tend there, I'm gonna join it. What

is joining a church means saying I'm not ashamed to

say I'm a part of the body of Christ. One

day you're gonna stand before God. You're gonna stand before

Jesus Christ, your savior, who died on the cross for you,

and there'll be nail prints in his hands, and he's

gonna say, now, what did you do with your life?

He's not going to be interested in hearing. Well, you know,

I joined the country club. Yeah well, I joined the PTAH.

Yeah well, I joined a sewing group, Yeah well, I

joined I joined Save the Whales. Yeah, I joined any

other social or service organization. He's going to say, did

you join my family? Did you join the body of Christ?

My body? Did you join my church which I died for?

Wait a minute, you joined everything else and you didn't

join my body, my family that I'm going to take

with me forever. What were you thinking? I admit, I

believe I commit. My public expression of that commitment baptism

and being a part of church. That doesn't save you.

It just shows that you are. It's not the rute,

it's the fruit. And then d I depend on God's promise.

I depend on God's promise. And when I depend on

God's promise. What is the promise that whosoever believes in

him should not perish but have everlasting life. Now, in

order to remember that promise, God gave us two symbols,

baptism and communion, and he said, I want you to

remember this what I've done for you, what it cost

for me to get you into heaven. You couldn't get

to Heaven on your own, So I came to earth

and died on the cross. And if you'll put your

trust in me, you walk out through this door named

Jesus immediately into the presence of God into Heaven. And

you're going to celebrate. And by the way, you do

not want to miss next week, because next week we're

going to cover all what heaven's all about. And it's

a whole lot more interesting you think it is. Heaven

is not boring, not at all. You think about the

greatest things we've ever done here on earth, and you

think about a billion times better than that, and that's

what Heaven's going to be. Let's bow our heads. If

you've never opened your life to Jesus Christ, you do

this this moment. I'm going to lead you in a prayer,

and I'm going to ask everyone here to pray it

in their heart. Let's just say this, Dear God, you

are God and I'm not. And I admit it, and

I'm humbling myself and I'm letting go of my pride,

and I'm saying I realize, I admit that I need

a savior to get into heaven. I know that I

could never be good enough. I know that I've done wrong,

I'm flawed, I've sent and I need a savior to

get me into heaven. Thank you God that you so

loved the world that you gave your son Jesus for me,

that if I would believe in you, I could receive

eternal life. So, Jesus Christ, I believe that you died

for me. And today I commit myself to you. I

want to change, I want to repent. I want to

be what you want me to be, not what I

want to be. And I commit myself completely to you

to follow you, to trust you, to serve you, to

know you, to love you. And I'm going to depend

on your promise that you've said whoever believes in him

should not perish, but however lasting life. I want that

assurance so that there's no doubt in my mind that

I've committed myself to you and I've trusted you for

my salvation. Thank you for dying and for loving me.

I pray this in your name Jesus. Amen.

Hey, if you've just prayed along with Rick to accept

Jesus in your life, Rick would love to hear from you.

Just email Rick at Pastorick dot com. We'll send you

free tools to help start your relationship with Jesus. Right now,

here's Pastor Rick with a special message.

You know, when I started Saddleback Church over forty years ago,

just a handful of people in our living room, I

also began writing a simple devotional just for the people

in our church to help them start each day with

hope and with truth and with peace that comes from

Jesus Christ. Well, you know that little devotional grew and

grew and grew, and today Daily Hope is one of

the largest email devotions in the whole world. And each

day people all around the globe are reconnecting with God's

promises and finding fresh strength in His word to face

whatever comes their way. Here's the best part. It's absolutely free. Okay,

we don't have any charge for this. Every day you'll

get a quick devotional read and a podcast that you

can listen to on the go. Now, you know, in

a world that's more distracted and uncertain than ever, I

want to help you start your day cidered on what

never changes, and what never changes is a God's love,

his unconditional love for you, and his promises to you.

You know, if you'll just spend just a few minutes

a day in the morning with the Lord, it can

bring so much more clarity, more purpose, more peace to

everything that happens in your day. Particularly, a psychologists has

said that what you do with the first five minutes

of your day pretty much sets the tone. So, friend,

you were never meant to go through life alone. I

want to personally invite you to just sign up for

the Daily Hope devotional. Do it today. I think it's

going to bring fresh encouragement to your walk in God.

If you'd like to sign up for the daily devotional,

it's easy, Just go to Pastorick dot com. That's pastorick

dot com. Be sure to join us next time as

we look into God's Word for our daily hope. This

program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your

generous financial support