Life Is Fair?

For three of our sermon series, you've been tricked as we've made our way verse by verse

through the Gospel of Luke chapter number 16.

And as we have arrived in Luke chapter 16, Jesus is dealing with three common misunderstandings

Luke 16 · chapter mention

of humans.

Ways in which the world or the devil has tricked you into believing that which is not so.

For example, in the very first sermon, we said, this truth number one, death is not the end.

And this is something a lot of people believe that you live, you die, and that's the end.

And in Luke chapter 16, Jesus said, no, death is not the end.

Luke 16 · chapter mention

There's life after death.

In the second sermon last week, we looked at this trick that has been perpetrated upon

humanity and that is your sin, it's not that big of a deal.

And we said, no, your sin, my sin is a big deal.

And all of those truths lead to this final sermon in this sermon series.

And the sermon is entitled, life is fair.

Remember as a kid, life's not fair.

Some of you have kids at home right now.

It's not fair.

And in this passage, we see Jesus is teaching that says, actually, life is fair.

Really?

We're going to get to that in a moment.

Before we do, welcome.

We are glad to see each and every one of you here.

Hey, tonight is special because tonight at four o'clock, there is a special meeting for

those interested in joining Heather and I in the Holy Land.

We do a Holy Land tour, a study tour, if you've never had a chance to visit the Holy Land

and would like to.

We're going to be going in March of 2024.

There's going to be a group of about 40 to 50 of the members of our church going.

We spend about 10 days traveling the Holy Land and study tour.

If you're interested in that, Pastor Caleb and I at four o'clock are going to be walking

through the first three to four days of the itinerary of that trip.

And we're going to be talking about it.

You'll learn some things.

Even if you're not going to the trip, you'll be fascinated by the locations and the geographical

study of the Holy Land.

So come to the meeting if you're interested.

If you come to the meeting, doesn't mean you have to go on the trip.

You're just learning more about the trip and the Holy Land as a whole.

And that's at four o'clock today.

You are welcome to come and be a part of that.

Life is fair.

Life is fair.

How many of you like I did grew up in a Christian home?

How many of you grew up in a Christian home?

Would you raise your hand?

How many of you did?

Okay.

I would say I'm looking around.

I'm looking at the percentage of the crowd here grew up in a Christian home.

I did.

And it wasn't just a Christian home.

It was a very, very religious home.

There's a lot of things we were not allowed to do.

A lot of things we were supposed to do.

One of the things we were not allowed to do was cursing.

Cursing was a big no-no in my family growing up.

How many of you experienced that?

Your parents were like, you're not allowed to say bad words.

How many of you had no bad words, right?

A lot of no bad words.

How many of you had parents?

Like no bad words.

Raise your hand.

How many of you are like, that's not my parents.

How many of you are like, I'm not cursing the bad words at me.

How many of you are like that?

All right.

You know, there's different differences, right?

How many of you had a little bit of both?

How many of you are like, it was kind of both, you know?

Yeah.

Don't say bad words also right at you.

Okay.

So my home, it was like no cursing.

They're all bad.

You're not allowed to say the bad words.

We weren't even allowed to watch movies with bad words.

We weren't even allowed to read books with cursing in it.

And so it was very, we weren't even allowed to say the pretend bad words.

You know what I mean?

Like, you know what?

How many of you know what I mean by the pretend bad words?

Like I got in trouble one time.

I got in trouble one time when I went to camp.

It was a Christian camp for saying, oh my gosh.

Gosh.

Did I say the D?

No.

Did I know?

At camp, they strapped me into this gyrosphere.

No, that's not the joke.

But they did.

It was a game.

It was a ride.

And you remember the gyrosphere, Derek?

And they would strap you in and you held on and they spun you this way and then they

spun you this way and they spun you this way.

And you're all, how many of you have ever seen one of these?

And so they strapped me in and I'm like 10 years old and I don't think they had insurance.

But nonetheless, they strapped me in and they spun it.

And I screamed, oh my gosh.

Because if you say, oh my God, that's bad.

But oh my gosh.

They unstrapped me.

They took me out and I had a counselor pull me aside and they said, Joshua, don't say,

oh my gosh.

It's a euphemism for the name of God.

It's like you're cursing the name of God.

And I'm like, I didn't know I was cursing the name of God.

I said, what do I say?

He said, next time say, oh, toots.

Oh, toots.

So I'm a 10 year old kid walking around my neighborhood, playing with the neighbor kids.

And I yell out, oh, toots.

And then they put me in a trash can like they should have.

Like they should have.

So I wasn't allowed.

We weren't allowed to watch movies with it.

We weren't allowed to read books with it.

The problem was Jurassic Park came out when I was 13 years old.

And my dad loves me.

But he also doesn't like bad words.

But he wanted to take me to the movie that I wanted to see.

So he took me to see Jurassic Park.

And I'll never forget, we sat there.

And some of you are like, I know you've told us about going to the same.

This was a big moment in my life.

I love Jurassic Park.

And we sat there together.

And while we sat there, this is true.

He would sit there and we were watching the movie Love in Every Minute.

But every time they would say a bad word, my dad would lean down and say, bad word.

Any of your Christian parents do that?

Any of you?

Yeah, there's one.

Yeah.

Yes!

He's a bad word.

And I'm like, all right, OK.

They would say a couple.

He's like, both those are bad words.

Bad word.

OK, all right.

Bad word.

Now, this is true.

And you can ask my family if this is the reality.

To this day, I have picked up that bad habit.

And as we watch movies as a family, like for real, even at this day, we'll watch Disney

Plus and some bad word.

I'll be like, bad word.

Now all the kids say it back to me.

Before I can say it, bad word.

So at least we all know which one the bad ones are.

And I wanted to read the book that Jurassic Park was based upon.

I did not know it was based upon a book.

I love the movie so much.

I'm like, I got to read the book.

So I went to the library and I found Michael Cretan's Jurassic Park.

And I took it home and I was going to use it for a book report.

And I was reading through and there is a lot of bad curse words in the book.

I didn't know.

I didn't know.

I wanted to finish the book, but I also knew that if my father saw the book with all of

the curse words, he would be a set.

So I had a decision to make.

What was I going to do?

And I knew what I should do.

I should take a black magic marker.

And I would didact every single, redact every single bad word in the library's copy of Jurassic

Park.

You say you did not.

Yes, I did.

Every time it said a bad word, I would just, for God, for God.

I just took it out, took it out, took it out, took it out all the way through the whole

book.

I say that so that if you are in Las Vegas at a library one day and you find a Jurassic

Park, this is true.

It's all redacted.

That's my copy.

Just so you know.

While I was doing that, I kept coming across a phrase.

One particular character says over and over.

And that is God damn it.

God damn it.

God damn it.

God damn it.

And then multiple times, God damn you to hell.

And for me, growing up the way I did, that hit differently.

That character didn't know what he was saying.

The writer, Michael Crick, probably didn't know what he was saying.

Just when they read it, are not going to read it in the same way that I would.

God damn you to hell.

And so it stuck out to me.

I've wrestled with this question ever since.

And that is, does God arbitrarily damn people to hell?

Does God damn you to hell?

This is not a sermon about cursing.

This is not to say, never say those words.

What it is to say is, does God actually do this?

And to get the answer, I want to go to Jesus himself, who is here to tell us all about

God, who is the very Son of God and God in human flesh.

And in Luke chapter 16, verses 19 and following, we get the story of God talking about damning

Luke 16:19

and talking about hell.

Let me just warn you before I continue.

Today's sermon is a very heavy sermon.

Today's sermon deals with a very heavy truth.

Today's sermon is a story, but one of the most dark stories in all of the Bible.

This is not a happy story like Pastor Caleb told just a few weeks ago, where a son was

lost and he ran home to the Father's house and the Father grabbed the son and said, welcome

home, my son.

Kill the fatted calf.

That is a beautiful story in the previous chapter.

This is not a story like that, though it's a story from Jesus.

In fact, if you look at the structure of Luke chapter 15, 16 and 17 for you Bible students,

Luke 15 · chapter mention

you'll find it fascinating because they're structured similarly.

There is a teaching and then a teaching and then a story to illustrate the teaching.

And then a teaching and then a teaching and then a story to illustrate the teaching.

And again, in 17 is teaching, a teaching story to illustrate the teaching.

And what we arrive at in this chapter is we've already learned these truths, these teachings

from Jesus.

This is not the end, your sin is a big deal and now a story to illustrate all the teaching.

But it is not a nice story.

Let's go ahead and talk about this story, this heavy story.

Luke 16 and verse 19, it says, there was a certain rich man, Jesus says, who was clothed

in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day.

He describes it in great detail.

Jesus tells us about this wealthy man who not only what he wore, the best clothing available,

but also what he ate, the best food available.

He was wealthy, just like Jesus was talking about wealthy people earlier in the chapter.

But there was also another person in verse 20, but there was a certain beggar named Lazarus

full of sores who laid at his gate, desiring to be fed from the crumbs that fell from the

rich man's table.

A rich man inside, the best clothing and the best food, a poor man outside, literally outside

of his gate, who not only had no food, he begged and wished he could just have the crumbs

that fell from the table of the rich man.

The Bible says his body was full of sores, meaning that he was himself was some sort

of a sick individual.

He had some sort of an illness.

Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.

So I have a question, the question should be obvious.

Why didn't the rich man help the poor man?

Really so far we see two aspects or two people in the story.

One person filled with pleasure, one person filled with pain, one person filled with wealth,

one person filled with poverty, one person seemingly who has everything, one person who

seemingly has nothing.

And the Bible says in verse 22 that both of them end up dying.

And the rich man also died and was buried.

Now that's interesting.

They both died, but the Bible says that the rich man died and was buried.

You say, well, wasn't the poor man buried?

Well, presumably not, or the text would have told us so.

He was a poor man.

They just took his body and threw it into the closest ravine and let him rot.

But the rich man, he had a burial.

He probably had a great memorial service, a great celebration.

All of the other people from the community who wanted to pay their respects, they were

all there.

And so we see the rich man and the poor man both end up in the same predicament, death,

death, friend.

Death is the great equalizer.

We all end up in the same predicament.

We live and then we die.

But notice this.

The Bible says in verse 23, in being in torments, in Hades or hell, the man lifted up his eyes

and saw Abraham afar off in Lazarus in his bosom.

Rich man, poor man, they both die.

But what's fascinating about Jesus' story is that they both die and then they keep on

living.

This is a story that is pointing back to the truth from earlier in the chapter.

Death is not the end.

We die and then we keep living.

One of these people live in a place called paradise.

The others live in a place called Hades or hell.

And the Bible here says that he is in torments.

Here's the question.

Why did the rich man go to hell?

Some might say, well, he went to hell because he was the rich man.

And rich people deserve to go to hell.

Be careful, American.

Before we just presume, hell is for rich people and heaven for poor people.

That's not what the passage is teaching.

We know that as well because what is the name of paradise in this passage?

It's referred to as Abraham's bosom.

Abraham who is kind of in charge here was the wealthiest man of his day.

So Abraham, a very wealthy man, the paradise is named after.

So it's not like rich people heaven, poor people hell or hell for heaven for poor people

and rich people go to hell.

That's not what it's saying.

Somewhere along the line from Jesus' previous teachings, we must get this idea that the

rich man only lived for this life and had no idea about the next life.

And the poor man didn't think as much about this life, but he put all of his investments

in the next life.

This is why, by the way, it's important to study the Bible in context to understand

what the Bible is actually saying.

So look at what it says in verse 24 and 25.

This story continues, and then he cried out and said, the rich man cries out and says,

Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger

in water and cool my tongue.

For I am tormented in this flame.

He's in hell and he calls out to Abraham, his father.

Why does he call him father Abraham?

Well presumably because he was of the lineage of Abraham.

He was a son of Abraham.

You say how could a son of Abraham end up in hell?

Let's be very clear.

Listen, if you think because your grandfather or grandmother or father or mother is a believer

in God that somehow that's going to get you into heaven, you are gravely mistaken.

Your family heritage has nothing to do with your eternal soul.

You say, but I grew up in a Christian family or grew up in a religious family or my genealogy

is this or my racial background is that.

That means nothing.

Nothing.

Be careful.

Father Abraham, yes, he says, have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip

of his finger in water and cool my tongue.

For I am tormented in this flame.

Notice this as well.

He starts to pray.

Listen to me that the moment this man arrives in hell, he starts to pray.

Now there are some Christians who believe that only atheists go to hell.

Friend, let's be very clear.

There are no atheists in hell.

That's not meant to be funny.

The moment everybody who says they don't believe arrives in hell, they all believe.

And they all begin praying like they've never prayed before.

The problem is prayers won't work.

It won't work.

He says in verse 25, Abraham says, son, remember that in your lifetime you receive good things

and likewise Lazarus evil things, but now he is comforted and thou art tormented.

Can you please just send a little bit of water and touch my tongue because I'm burning in

this flame.

And Abraham's response is not sure, let's send him a bottle of water.

His answer was, hey pal, fair is fair.

Life is fair.

See, what do you mean?

This isn't fair.

Abraham says, no, don't you understand?

Your whole life was about that life.

And now you have to live this life in the afterlife.

But Lazarus' whole life was not about that life.

His whole life was about the next life.

Hey pal, fair is fair.

Life is fair.

You spend your entire life living for this life denying the next life or believing in

the next life but focusing on this life, it will show in the next life.

But those who spend their entire life focusing on the next life, it's fair according to Abraham

that the next life recognizes that.

Yeah?

Isn't that what Abraham is saying?

But of course it is.

And it's reflected back in Jesus' teachings throughout chapter 16.

Now verse 26.

Abraham says, well, fair is fair but then verse 26, besides all this, between us and

you, there's a great golf fixed so that those who would like to come and pass over to you

cannot and those who would like to come from you and pass to us cannot do so either.

He describes the underworld.

He describes what the Old Testament refers to as sheol, the grave, Hades.

It describes on one side of the underworld a great cavernous pit of burning flame, a

great chasm between the two and paradise on the other side.

That's what it describes.

You say, is that what I should expect when I die?

And the answer is no.

Say what do you mean?

According to the scriptures, the Bible says that Jesus Christ, when he died, he was buried.

And while he was in the grave for three days, the Bible says he led those who were captive

out of their captivity and led them to the promised land or what we call heaven.

Out of Ibrahim's bosom.

The Bible gives this indication that between these two, at one point, this was a holding

tank for believers.

And once Jesus Christ rose from the grave, he descended.

He ascended out and freed those who were once believers, the Old Testament saints, and took

them to the kingdom of heaven.

Hell then expanded her borders, the Bible says, and is now the place that we know it to be

to this day.

But nonetheless, Jesus was describing what was currently during his day still happening

in the underworld.

Verse 27, Then the man said, I beg you therefore, Father, that you would send him to my father's

house.

Now, stop.

Story is, Abraham, please send some water and dip the tip of your finger in water to

cool my tongue for I'm tormented in this flame.

We can't.

Look, life is fair.

Fair is fair.

He had nothing.

Now you have nothing.

He had, you had everything.

Now you have, he has everything.

Fair is fair.

Also, there's a great gulf between us.

If we wanted to come and help you, we couldn't.

And if you wanted to come to us, you can't.

So now in desperation, the man asks the question.

The rich man looks out and says, okay, okay, okay, okay.

I beg you, Father, please send Lazarus to my father's house.

He remembers his family.

In hell, he remembers his family and says, for I have five brothers and I know they don't

believe they're on the same trajectory that I am.

Send Lazarus that he may testify to them, lest they end up coming to this place of torment.

You think that's a reasonable request.

Send somebody back from the grave so that that person can tell my family so they don't

come here.

And Abraham's response is fascinating.

Abraham says, they have Moses.

They have the prophets.

Let your brothers hear them.

Now the phrase Moses and the prophets is significant as you walk through the book of Luke.

We just talked about it last week.

Moses and the prophets are talking about the scrolls of the Bible.

They have the writings of Moses.

They have the writings of the prophets.

Let them hear the Bible if they want the truth.

Please, send somebody to tell my family.

They got the Bible.

If they're not going to hear the Bible, they're not going to hear them if they come back from

the dead.

Why?

Because some people just choose not to believe.

That's exactly what Abraham goes on to say.

Look what he says in verse number 30.

No father Abraham.

And if one goes back from the dead, then they will repent, but Abraham said, look, if they

refuse to hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded even if one rises from

the dead.

Stop.

Let me ask you a question real quick before we continue with the sermon.

Who was it that was telling this story?

If you know it, say it out loud.

Who was telling the story?

Jesus.

I'm going to ask you and you tell me.

Who was it that was telling this story?

Jesus.

Jesus.

Who also is the person who would later die and rise from the grave?

Who is it?

Jesus.

Interesting to me that Jesus, less than a year before he would die and rise from the grave,

says, look, even if somebody dies and rises from the grave, people who don't want to believe

won't believe.

So you might think to yourself, well, if all of this is real, I mean, the way they could

prove it is if somebody just died and then came back.

If they did die and come back and you still don't believe.

Not because it doesn't make sense, but because you choose not to believe.

You say, you seem like you're upset.

I am burdened for your eternal soul.

I am so overwhelmingly convinced that for some of you, this is the only opportunity you're

ever going to have to hear about the answer to your eternal damnation.

And so with every fiber of my being, as I was up last night and up this morning early

praying and literally weeping for you, that you would grasp the reality of what life happens

after life and that your very soul is at stake.

In this sermon, I want you to see number one, the story.

Number two, I want you to see the terror.

Now I need to address a certain kind of Christian in the room because I know as I have in past,

I will receive emails from you.

And it comes from a very sincere place.

I know it does.

Pastor, I love the church, but when you start talking about hell, it makes me uncomfortable.

And when you start talking about hell, it's going to keep people from Jesus.

Let me be very clear.

If you have to send me an email, send Jesus an email too.

I'm only preaching verse by verse through the teachings of Jesus.

And the reason Jesus brought up hell is because he knew it was real and he didn't want people

to go there.

It's not me who lacks compassion for the lost.

It's the Christian who refuses to talk about the reality of the afterlife, who has no compassion

for the lost.

Hell is real, friend, and it's terrible, and it's terrifying.

They say, what's so terrible about hell?

A couple things we see in the passage.

We first see that in hell, there is no forgetting.

There's no forgetting.

Who you are now is who you will be in the afterlife.

You're still you.

Whether you're in heaven or you're in hell, it's still you.

I had somebody recently after I preached on heaven ask a sincere question.

He said, pastor, you give the idea that in heaven, we still kind of have all of our memories

of what took place in the previous life.

Of course you do.

It's not a blank slate.

They don't wipe everything clean.

It's not like you're in men in black and all of a sudden at the gates of heaven, they

press a button, you're like, who am I?

This is, you have your memories.

And in hell, what is terrifying is that you have your memories.

You will remember, and I am naive to think that there aren't people in this room right

now who choose to reject Jesus Christ.

And as you reject Jesus Christ, when you die in your sin, you will die and you will go

to hell.

You need to understand you will not lose your memories.

And one of the things that you will remember is this moment.

As you rejected the offer of Jesus Christ.

And unfortunately you'll remember every opportunity you had to repent and receive Jesus for eternity.

You'll remember it.

Not only will you remember every opportunity, you're going to remember every family member

and friend.

Send somebody to tell my brothers, I wonder how many times the rich man mocked Moses,

mocked the prophets, and mocked the truth of Jesus in front of those same brothers.

I wonder in hell how much torment he had to think through because he's like, oh, they

got to know, I told him it's all baloney, it's all fake, it's not real, this is ridiculous,

we're a modern family, we're a modern perspective.

We don't believe these backward stories.

I wonder how many times he had to remember in hell for eternity.

Not only his lost opportunities, but leading his own family to unbelief and hell.

By the way, he is still there this morning.

Because the terror of hell is not only that you remember everything, there is no forgetting,

there also is no relief.

There's no relief.

Dip the tip of your finger in water and cool my tongue for I am tormented in this flame,

burning yet not burned up.

The torments of hell are fire and brimstone.

Even if our modern society likes to put their fingers in their ears and say, we're smarter

than that, okay, good luck.

There's no relief because of the fire, by the way, there's no relief because of friends.

There was a famous celebrity who years ago said, I don't mind going to hell, that's where

all my friends are.

Hey, pal, you're not going to see your friends.

Hell is described like a prison.

Meaning you have your cell.

There's no yard time.

There's no hanging out.

There's no getting around and playing cards and cursing God.

It's you and the fire, and that's it.

The biggest terror of no relief is that you are separated from God.

Now, when I say separated from God, the unbeliever might think, finally, no God in my life.

That's the person I'm angry with anyway because of what they did and who they are.

No, it's not that there's no God as his presence is not there, for the Bible is very clear

about the omnipresence of God.

God is everywhere.

The psalmist said, I ascend into the clouds and you are there.

I descend into the earth and to hell and you are there.

God is still everywhere, he still has dominion over everything.

It's not that you have escaped the judgment of God, it's that you have escaped the mercy

of God.

God's mercy is no there.

It's not like the borders of hell have signs that say, no God allowed, no God is there.

The borders of hell have a sign that say, no grace from God here.

You say, well, big deal, I haven't experienced the grace of God.

Oh, yes, you have far more than you realize.

Theologians call it common grace.

Say, what is common grace?

Special grace is God giving to his children because he loves his children, believers.

But common grace is that God gives us blessings and he gives blessings to everyone.

The Bible says it this way.

The sun shines upon the just and the unjust.

The rain pours upon the believing farmer and the unbelieving farmer.

It doesn't matter if you believe in God or you curse his name.

You'll find a night where you could walk around your neighborhood and look around and say,

this place is amazing.

This is beautiful.

You'll have a relationship that brings you joy and happiness.

You have experienced what's called common grace, the mercy of God that you don't deserve.

Joy that you never earned.

But in hell, all of that is gone.

There's no mercy.

There's no grace.

There's no goodness of God there.

You are without God forever.

There is no forgetting.

There is no relief.

There is no escape.

There is no escape.

God has created a fairy tale called reincarnation, this idea that maybe after this life I'm born

into the next and then I get another shot and another shot and another shot.

Isn't that a beautiful fairy tale created by the devil and his demons to convince you?

Yeah, die.

You'll be fine.

You get another shot later and then you arrive in the next shot and you realize that's it.

You say, why do you believe that?

Here's why.

Because I believe what Jesus said.

What do you believe?

Like, it's totally fine if you want to put the words of Jesus against any other teacher.

Go for it.

I'm sitting with Jesus on this one.

You got to sit with somebody.

No forgetting, no relief, no escape, no communication.

There are no messages being sent back from hell.

He tried.

Send somebody to tell my brothers, don't come to this place.

There's no message.

Somewhere we get the idea that our dead relatives are somehow communicating with us from hell

or heaven or beyond the grave.

They're not communicating.

And now I'm careful here because I know that some of you, I love you, but some of you,

this is going to be hard to hear and we're going to burst your bubble a little bit theologically.

There's no messages from them.

The message they want you to hear has already been written down.

It's called Moses and the Prophets.

That's what they're pointing you to.

You say, but I want to speak to them.

You will one day, if you die and go to heaven, to be with them.

There's no communication.

There's no forgetting.

There's no relief.

There's no escape.

There's no communication.

Lastly, there's no unfairness.

There's no unfairness.

There's nobody in hell that can cry out, this is not fair.

No, it's fair.

You got what you wanted in your life and now this is what happens.

Life is fair.

You want to reject God's offer.

You want to reject Jesus Christ.

You want to go your own way.

Fantastic.

But you will not be able to stand up in front of God, the judge and say, you're the one

on trial.

You can do that now.

This is what mankind does.

Mankind puts God on trial and says, how dare you?

And what God's going to do is bring you before him and say, let's talk about your sin.

Your sin.

Your sin will damn you to hell.

You say, well, I'm not that bad of a sinner.

Neither was this guy.

He wasn't.

He walked by a homeless guy a few times.

I mean, he was nice enough to allow the homeless guy to stay on his gate.

Maybe from the rich man's perspective, he's like, I mean, come on.

I mean, I could take one of my guards and shoo him away, but I allow him to beg with all my

rich friends coming by.

He makes a living off of me.

Wasn't that bad of a guy?

He's not a monster, this guy in hell.

In fact, he's such a loving person.

He's thinking about his family, not wanting them to come here.

See, somewhere we've gotten this idea that bad people go to hell and good people go to

heaven.

No friend.

Sinners go to hell and save people go to heaven.

You say, well, that's a problem.

Why is it a problem?

Because I'm a sinner.

Yep.

Yes.

Romans chapter 10 says, as it is written, there is none righteous.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

No, not one.

You're in the belt with everybody else.

You're a sinner who deserves to be damned.

Romans chapter three, verse 23 says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of

God.

Your sin demands a payment.

Romans chapter six, verse 23 says, for the wages of sin is death.

What you earned, your wage for your sin is death.

And Revelation chapter 21 of verse eight tells you what that death is.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

Look what it says at the bottom of the verse.

This is the second death.

What is the second death?

Fire and brimstone.

Who gets fire and brimstone for their second death?

Here it is, the list.

Those who are cowardly, sin.

Those who are unbelieving, sin.

Those who do abominable things, sin.

Murderers, sin.

Sexually immoral, sin.

Sorcery, sin.

Idolaters, sin.

Liars.

Sin.

All of them will have their place.

They'll have their sale.

They'll have their prison sentence in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone.

This is the second death.

This is the teaching of the Bible.

And in case you're not aware, none of us are happy about this idea.

I am not one of those guys up here saying, glory to God, the bad people are going to

hell.

I have wept over this sermon.

And I'm scared more than maybe some of you are for your own soul.

I'm terrified for you.

Say, why aren't you terrified for yourself, Josh?

Because you're so good?

No.

No, because I deserve hell probably more than any of you.

But I've been saved.

You see, I discovered the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I repented of my sin and I received him as Savior, and now I'm going to heaven when I

die.

And so can you.

See that's the third part of the sermon.

The story, the terror.

Number three, the good news.

The good news.

That was awesome.

Either he's excited about the gospel or he's thinking he's going to lunch soon.

Yay, it's about time.

This guy won't stop.

What is the good news of the gospel?

Here's the good news of the gospel.

Though all of this is true, God doesn't want to damn you to hell.

He doesn't want to.

It's not his desire.

That's what Jesus was saying in John chapter 3, for God so loved the world that he gave

John 3 · chapter mention

his only begotten Son.

The whosoever, no matter who you are, if you believe in Christ, if you put your faith in

Jesus Christ, you'll be saved.

Jesus, he's a bad person.

The Son came not into the world to condemn the world.

Christ did not come to condemn you.

It's not God who wants to damn you.

God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through

him might be saved.

Jesus Christ knew that your sin had to be paid for, so he died upon the cross and shed

his blood to pay for your sin so that you would not have to die and go to hell.

He wants to save you.

You say, well, then what do I need to do to receive the salvation from God?

Well, what it says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved.

Sadly, sadly people will choose to go to hell.

God, damn you to hell.

No, no friend.

God did everything he could to save your wretched soul.

Your rejection of him and apathy about the next life damns you to hell.

You choose hell.

Shockingly, it's true, even though somebody rising from the dead, even somebody rising

from the dead didn't change your mind, which is exactly what Jesus would go on to do about

nine months later.

See nothing can change you until you decide, I'm wrong.

I admit it.

I'm a sinner.

I need a savior.

I've mocked it.

I've made fun of it.

I haven't made fun of it.

I've just ignored it, done my own thing.

Now is the day of repentance, yeah?

Look at me.

Don't ignore the warning from God.

Look at me.

You don't know better than everybody.

You certainly don't know better than Jesus.

Otherwise you're going to make the same mistake that Harry Truman made.

Harry Truman?

Not the one you're thinking of.

There's another Harry.

He was a well-known business owner who owned a lodge right outside of Mount St. Helen.

Now for some of you may not know this, but you can look it up in your history books at

this point, but the scientists began to go to the entire region around Mount St. Helen's

and say, hey, look, this mountain is a volcano and it's going to blow.

And we can see the seismic activity so badly and so obviously you've got to get out of here.

And so they began to evacuate.

But because we live in America and it's the land of the free, home of the brave, can I

get an amen?

People can choose what they're going to do.

And one such man, Harry, Harry Truman, refused.

He said, ah, it's a bunch of bologna.

And he actually became a bit of a celebrity.

You can read newspaper articles of the time.

You can watch old clips on television interviews.

And everybody was like, this guy is awesome because we as Americans love the one guy who

says, I'm not following the crowd.

I do what I want.

They don't know what they're talking about.

And so the scientists themselves arrived at his door and they're like, bro, you got to

get out of here.

That's right.

The scientists said, bro, police came and said, men, you've got to get out of here.

His family and his friends arrived at his door and said, you only have days left.

But he said, I'm going to be fine.

And when Mount St. Helens erupted, the lava flow literally went over his entire residence.

I'm warning you.

And maybe you know better.