Sermon

7th Sept 2025: Heaven & Hell Pt2 - what the bible says about Hell

The Way Church Podcast

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  1. Welcome to the podcast of the White Church in Adelaide, South

  2. Australia. You know, I did, I did say that

  3. this was a you know, talking about hell is a hard topic.

  4. Not for us, not like not for us in this place, right?

  5. Like when we think about who we are in this place as a look

  6. around this room, we are believers in this place.

  7. So talking about this isn't a hard topic for us.

  8. Talking about this is a hard reality for those around us in

  9. the community and the world around us, but not for us.

  10. Like talking about hell and you know, the lake of fire and, and

  11. judgement and these things. This is not a hard topic for us.

  12. This is a good thing for us. We're going to see that Jesus

  13. judging the world and separating between the good and the bad is

  14. the greatest day ever for all of creation.

  15. Separating evil and separating darkness from the good is the

  16. greatest day, you know, for us as believers.

  17. So you know, it should it should stir some excitement in us

  18. because that's the day that's approaching that we're coming

  19. into. Can I just say as well, like I'm

  20. just thinking about, you know, our time of singing and stuff in

  21. our gathering here this morning. And it's like, what's our

  22. expectation of the presence of God, of being with God in this

  23. place and seeing God do what God can only do?

  24. Because, you know, when I read the Scripture, when people

  25. follow Jesus, they were expecting that when they were

  26. following him and when they were in his presence that something

  27. was going to happen. That's the reason that they

  28. followed him. The crowds gathered to Jesus

  29. because stuff happened when Jesus was there.

  30. And so I just want to remind us of where we stand in this place

  31. today. You know, it's not just through

  32. lovely songs and beautiful voices and all of that, that God

  33. moves. It's because he's here.

  34. And so I just want to remind us that that Jesus is in this

  35. place, that the Holy Spirit is with us in this place.

  36. And we've got to be expecting that when, when God's in this

  37. place that God can move. And that means that the, that

  38. the stuff that needs to be dealt with in my life or, or just the,

  39. the stuff that I need God to fix, You know, my, the needs

  40. that I have as a, as a believer to serve him and go after him

  41. that I can come to my loving father.

  42. It's Father's Day and come to my loving father.

  43. And he will take care of my needs because he is a good

  44. father. He is a good God.

  45. So I hope that we're even just seated in this place today.

  46. I hope we're expectant that Holy Spirit can come in here and fix

  47. some stuff and heal us and, and set us up for success and, and,

  48. and that we could leave this place empowered that we could

  49. receive power because the powerful 1 is in our midst.

  50. Amen. So Lord, we, we seek you for

  51. that this morning. We don't even seek you for what

  52. we can get from you, Lord, but we seek you because you are the

  53. God that has promised amazing things that you have the God

  54. that promised that we would come from death to life and that you

  55. would restore us and heal us and strengthen us and guide us and

  56. speak to us and, and lead us, Lord.

  57. That's the God that we seek today, Lord Jesus, we come to

  58. you and we say, Lord, we're, we're opening ourselves up to

  59. you. My heart is open to you, Lord,

  60. to do whatever it is that's needed in my life, in my heart,

  61. in my thinking, in my understanding.

  62. Lord, we, we seek you for revelation in this place today,

  63. that you would reveal your word to us, Lord, that we would see

  64. you clearer, that we would have a clearer understanding of why

  65. we're here. Why?

  66. Why I'm alive on this planet, but why you've planted this

  67. church, Lord, why you've gathered us to be together in a

  68. part of the church in this place in this time.

  69. Lord, reveal yourself in this place today.

  70. Lord, in Jesus name, Amen. I read a quote this week and it

  71. says if we don't accept the reality of hell, we won't

  72. rightly understand the glory of the gospel that is true.

  73. If we don't accept the reality that God's going to do what he

  74. says, then we won't realize how wonderful the gospel is and how

  75. wonderful salvation is. And so, you know, as we look at

  76. the as the Scriptures today and as we dig through some of this

  77. stuff, again, this is exciting to us that sit in this place

  78. because that that's going to stir a, a Thanksgiving in our

  79. hearts for what God has done and for what Jesus did on the cross

  80. and for the fact that this is no longer the reality that we were

  81. destined for, but Christ, but Jesus.

  82. And so again, just to, to set the stage, I'm talking about

  83. like the final, the final judgement, the final separation,

  84. this is this is hell, this is today, this is hell, this is the

  85. lake of fire. This is where it's, this is like

  86. the end of all this stuff. You know, it says that hell and

  87. death and Hades will be cast into this place.

  88. It says that, it says here in Revelation 20, it says the devil

  89. who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone

  90. where the beast and the false prophet are.

  91. And they will be tormented day and night forever.

  92. It doesn't sound good. Then Death and Hades were cast

  93. into the Lake of fire. This is the second death.

  94. And anyone not found written in the book of Life was cast into

  95. the Lake of fire. Anyone not written in in the

  96. Book of Life is cast into that place where who is there?

  97. Satan, you know, the false prophet and all, like everyone

  98. that's rebelled against God. You go in there and

  99. unfortunately there are a lot of people that are going to go

  100. there. A lot of people were going to

  101. reject the gospel, but that's it.

  102. That's that's the end. This is like Revelation 20 we're

  103. getting. There's only two more chapters

  104. after that. It's just like that's the end.

  105. And I love like, you know, that was Revelation 20 verse 15 that

    Revelation 20:15

  106. I read here with those not found written in the book cast in

  107. there. Verse 21 says this, this is how

  108. quickly things move forward. Revelation 20 verse 21 says now

  109. I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the 1st heaven and the

  110. first earth has passed away. It's just like once that's done,

  111. now it's like now we're going to talk about the new stuff and it

  112. doesn't revisit, you know, like these people's reality or

  113. anything like that. It's like now we're going to

  114. talk about the new Jerusalem with a bride coming down from

  115. heaven and stuff like that. You know, so that's the, this is

  116. like the end of this stuff. And like I believe we're living

  117. in a time and, and a season of, of that in our world of our

  118. planet. We're we're coming into this

  119. stuff. You know, people have lived for

  120. centuries before us and they believe that, you know, Jesus

  121. could come in anytime. How much more now Jesus could

  122. come in this moment? I hope that like we have some

  123. sort of reality of that, that like, if we're not right in here

  124. with him, we got problems because the time is short.

  125. He is coming. All right.

  126. So Jesus, I said last week again, you know, it's sort of

  127. going over a lot of the same things, but Jesus spoke a lot

  128. about hell. Jesus spoke a lot about hell.

  129. Like when you look at what Jesus was was saying, Jesus spoke

  130. about hell in great detail. So we just got to look at some

  131. of the things that Jesus said about hell.

  132. So Matthew 1028 says do not fear those who can kill the body but

  133. cannot kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy

  134. both the soul and the body in hell.

  135. Jesus said that. I'm just going to unpack this

  136. first a bit because there's a little bit in this.

  137. It says fear, you know, don't fear Him who can kill the body,

  138. fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

  139. Now that word for fear is the same word.

  140. I just want to touch on that for a minute because Jesus is saying

  141. don't, don't fear him who can kill the body.

  142. If I was going to run at you with a knife to try and kill

  143. you, what sort of fear are you going to be fearing with?

  144. You're going to be scared for your life, right?

  145. Same word is used here. Jesus is saying don't fear those

  146. who can kill your body, fear him who can end it for good.

  147. Do you see what I'm saying? Say fear, like a fear, real

  148. fear, you know. And I think when I think about

  149. that, I think that I think that we've shield away from the fear

  150. of God. I think we have because we,

  151. we've made it some sort of a form of respect or honour for

  152. God. And you should have honour and

  153. respect for God. But I would have honour and

  154. respect for a sporting star if he came and stood before me.

  155. Do you see what I'm saying? This is not the same honour and

  156. respect that I'm supposed to have for God.

  157. You know, when I think about, you know, it's Father's Day and

  158. when I think about, you know, when the boys act up or

  159. whatever. And if I'm at work, some really

  160. my life doesn't really plan out this way because of my work life

  161. and stuff. But you know, you hear the

  162. stories of Dad's at work and Mom's just like you wait till

  163. dad gets home, right? And these kids, this is not

  164. because Dad's abusive and you know this and that, but Dad's

  165. going to correct things. And when you, when you know that

  166. you've done wrong, right? When these kids know that

  167. they've messed up and mum's going to tell dad when he comes

  168. home, they're fearing dad, not because he's a scary guy that

  169. wants to hurt them, but because dad will do justice, right?

  170. And I'm in trouble here because I have, I've acted up, you know,

  171. I mean, I'm to be blamed. You know, kids know that when

  172. they, when they do wrong and that there's going to be

  173. consequence, they know that they've messed up.

  174. You don't have to try and convince them they did the wrong

  175. thing. They're just like, Oh my gosh,

  176. like they're, they're fearful, You know, and I think that's

  177. just a small picture of, of this fear that we have for God.

  178. You know, Solomon was one of the wisest men on the planet.

  179. Well, he was the wisest man at the time outside of Jesus.

  180. I believe he was the wisest man. God blessed him with wisdom, and

  181. Solomon writes this in Proverbs 17.

  182. He says fear, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of

  183. knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

  184. Let's not be foolish. Let's not be foolish in having

  185. some sort of flippant understanding of the fear of

  186. God. God will judge right, and we

  187. want to be that the fear of God for us, knowing that, you know,

  188. Jesus has paid the price and we we are saved.

  189. The fear of God wants to keep me from stepping outside of the

  190. grace that Jesus has made for me that he has given me right.

  191. The fear of God wants to meet make sure that I am not taking

  192. advantage of God's grace and living in a way that's like, Oh

  193. well, you know, Jesus paid the price.

  194. That is a scary place to be living.

  195. You know, I want to be fearful that in the way that I live, in

  196. the way that I speak and how I, how I lead in these things that

  197. I don't slip into some sort of a oh, well, you know, Jesus has

  198. paid the price attitude. I want to be fearful that man

  199. like I, I, I don't want to step outside of God's grace.

  200. I don't want to. You know, there's, there's a

  201. prayer that says, you know, Lord, let me be worthy of your

  202. coming. That's an interesting 1, isn't

  203. it? Let me be worthy of my coming.

  204. Yeah, but Jesus paid the price. Well, of course I'm worthy of

  205. his coming, you know, but we're instructed to pray, pray that

  206. you would be worthy of your coming because we could, we

  207. could mess this up. Do you know what I mean?

  208. You could turn your back on God and turn your back on.

  209. I don't want to get into the once saved away saved stuff, but

  210. I just want to be fearful that that couldn't happen because if

  211. it could, I don't want it to happen.

  212. Do you see what I'm saying? I don't know, I just want to be

  213. fearful. I just want to to look at my

  214. Lord and give him the honour and the respect that only he is due.

  215. Another thing from this passage in Matthew 10 that I just want

  216. to address here is where it says fear him who he was able to

  217. destroy both soul and body. I've heard people try and say

  218. that, you know, this just means that this destroy word means

  219. that those that are cast into hell will just be destroyed and

  220. they won't exist anymore. This is not what this is saying.

  221. You know, this the scripture, you know, we don't have time to

  222. dig right into this, but that word destroy is used in many

  223. ways in the Scripture if you go and look at it.

  224. And I would encourage you, if you're questioning that, go and

  225. look for yourself. That's the safe place.

  226. Go and find out what the Word of God says.

  227. Go look at the word destroy. Go look at where how it's used

  228. in other contexts throughout the Scripture and you'll see that

  229. it's not saying that, you know, the other thing that you know,

  230. sort of lands up for me is that the rest of the Scripture

  231. doesn't teach that. You would have to if, if that's

  232. what that's saying, that you know, God's going to destroy

  233. them in hell and they just cease to exist.

  234. You have to discount a whole bunch of other scriptures.

  235. You know, the one that I read before about, you know, Satan's

  236. cast into this, into the lake of fire, and it's eternal torment.

  237. And everyone not written in the Book of Life is thrown in there

  238. as well. Yeah.

  239. But they're just going to be burned up and not exist.

  240. But Satan's going to be in there.

  241. You see, it just doesn't make sense.

  242. It's not. It doesn't fit what the Bible

  243. teaches. So people will be, you know,

  244. people that don't know him will be in eternal suffering,

  245. separated from God and conscience like we in in a

  246. conscious state, knowing they're there, knowing that God's not

  247. there. That's hell, right?

  248. That is hell. All right, Let's look at some

  249. more verses here. So Matthew 1342, this is some of

  250. the ways that Jesus describes this place, right?

  251. He says gnashing of teeth. You know, this is like anguish

  252. and regret. This is the sort of feelings and

  253. emotions people are going to be feeling here.

  254. Matthew 25. I'll give you the references

  255. we're going to be. Don't bother turning there now.

  256. Matthew 2530 Outer darkness, Jesus calls it.

  257. He says it's outer darkness. And again he says weeping and

  258. gnashing of teeth doesn't sound like a nice place.

  259. Mark 943 He says hell is fire that shall never be quenched.

  260. Further on in Mark 944 Jesus quotes Isaiah 66 and he says

  261. they shall go forth and look upon the corpses of men.

  262. This is not the bit Jesus quotes, but who have trans.

  263. Let me just start again. This is what it says in Isaiah

  264. 66. It says, And they shall go forth

  265. and look upon the corpses of the men who have transgressed

  266. against against me. And this is what Jesus quotes

  267. for their worm. For their worm does not die, and

  268. the fire is not quenched. It's like you're not passing

  269. away there. It's like eternal fire and

  270. torment. Luke 161931 These verses talk

  271. about again, it's a place of torment.

  272. They're tormented by fire. There's crying out for help.

  273. Jesus has already come. Jesus has already died on the

  274. cross. Jesus, the Scripture says he's

  275. not going to be crucified a second time.

  276. He's already paid the price. If you've rejected salvation,

  277. he's not going to die again for you, right?

  278. If you reject it, there's a crying out for help that just

  279. goes unanswered. It's horrible.

  280. And you know, it says that you can't pass from this place into

  281. this place. You know, there's this parable

  282. about about the rich man and Lazarus.

  283. Yeah. And he and he says, you can't go

  284. from here to here. You know, there's a, there's a

  285. it, it says it's fixed, which means it's unchanging.

  286. All right, I'm just going to talk a little bit about some of

  287. the, some of the myths or the misconceptions that our world

  288. has taught us about hell through books and TV and, and Hollywood.

  289. Just a couple of these things. You know, you sort of taught

  290. that hell is like Satan's domain, like where Satan dwells,

  291. you know, like he's working out of there.

  292. It's like, it's like his headquarters.

  293. It's like we're Satan sending the demons out and getting stuff

  294. done. And you know, that is not hell.

  295. That is not the hell of the Bible.

  296. Satan will not rule in hell. Satan is there in eternal

  297. punishment and torment. He's not having his way there,

  298. right? He's not reigning and rolling

  299. over all the people and getting him to do all his will and all

  300. that. He is not having a good day.

  301. And you know, Satan is here. Where is Satan right now?

  302. He's not here. I don't think he's here.

  303. I think Satan's got more important things than to give us

  304. a hard time here at the White church.

  305. Can I just say that Satan can't be everywhere.

  306. I don't think that we're the biggest threat to Satan's

  307. Kingdom here on the earth. I wish we were.

  308. I pray that we could be, but I don't think that we are, right.

  309. So I think that Satan's probably where, you know, I'm just going

  310. to leave it at that. I'm not going to get into that.

  311. Satan is somewhere. He's probably not here.

  312. But that's not to say that he hasn't got his workers in around

  313. here doing his will and causing trouble for the church here,

  314. Right? OK, so the lake of fire is empty

  315. right now. It says the first one that's

  316. cast in there is the false prophet and and the beast.

  317. And then Satan goes afterwards. And and so there's a place that

  318. God's prepared that it's, it's not being used yet.

  319. This is the hell we're talking about.

  320. There is other demons and stuff like that.

  321. Fallen angels chain somewhere. I don't really know where that

  322. is, you know, but I don't think it's this end place.

  323. I think that it all just gets dumped in this in this final

  324. existence, which is the lake of fire in the Scripture.

  325. All right, So another misconception that, you know,

  326. you hear this when you talk to people.

  327. I heard someone say sort of some of these things, you know, this

  328. week that hell is a place for just the really bad people.

  329. You know, hell is a place for like murderers and, you know,

  330. people that do things to kids and, you know, just the most

  331. heinous crimes that you can think of, like hell is this

  332. place for them, but not for me. Like I, I haven't, you know, I'm

  333. not like that. You know, people would think

  334. this, right? I spoke to someone this week and

  335. I said, you know what? What do you think happens when

  336. you die? And he says, well, I'm hoping

  337. that I'll go to be in heaven. I said why?

  338. Like, you know, like we had a conversation.

  339. I said, so who goes to hell then?

  340. It's just like, oh, you're the bad people.

  341. It's like you think you're a good person.

  342. Like anyway, I'm not going to I'm not going to get into the

  343. I'm not going to get into the conversation, right?

  344. But in here somewhere, you know, when you dig a bit and when you

  345. pardon, when you poke and when you ask some, some questions,

  346. people realise they're not that good, right?

  347. We know like you know. That, you know, I'm, I'm fallen,

  348. I'm doing stuff that I don't even want to do.

  349. Do you see what I'm saying? Like hell is for people that

  350. fall short of the glory of God. You know, it's like hell is to

  351. separate all of the unrighteousness and all of the

  352. ungodliness and all of the evil and all that stuff from a

  353. perfect, righteous, holy God and his existence and everything

  354. that he, you know, the stuff where where God wants to dwell

  355. and the good and the stuff that he creates that's perfect.

  356. He can't have all of this stuff tainting it.

  357. And unfortunately that's you and I before Jesus came along,

  358. right? Like we're not that perfect.

  359. And that means that it I can't be there.

  360. This is why we have a place in hell, or at least that is why we

  361. were destined for hell right until our names written in the

  362. book of life, right? Because of what Jesus did, not

  363. because of me. Like I've been lived even like

  364. when Jesus came and saved me. I haven't lived a good enough

  365. life for me to expect to go to heaven.

  366. Right. When you understand, when you

  367. have some sort of an understanding of how good God

  368. is, you just go, well, yeah, I'm sort of falling way short of

  369. that God now what, my son Jesus. Thank you, Lord.

  370. You know, that's the point. So so all of that just to say

  371. that hell is not just for a place of the really bad people.

  372. It's for everyone that's outside of Christ, that's outside of

  373. receiving the gospel, which is people being able to be forgiven

  374. for being short of perfection. I haven't met anyone that I

  375. could look at and go, that person's perfect apart from my

  376. wife, you know? No, I'm joking.

  377. Of course she's not. But do you see what I'm saying?

  378. Like you would never have met anyone and go on.

  379. Yeah, that person's perfect in every way.

  380. Imagine what it was like meeting Jesus, though.

  381. When you think about that, I don't think, like, you know,

  382. there was reasons why the Pharisees hated him and wanted

  383. to kill him, and everyone else wanted to kill him.

  384. There's reasons for that, right? But it wasn't because he wasn't

  385. perfect. If anything, it was because he

  386. was perfect, right? I'll cut to the heart.

  387. I was just like, you can't be perfect.

  388. We have the law. Like, you know, we're the

  389. perfect ones, not you, you know, you see, So.

  390. Oh, man, I just I can't wait to meet Jesus.

  391. That's going to be a day, isn't it?

  392. I didn't like because it says that you know, when you see him

  393. as he is, then then you'll know how you are.

  394. Like it's I'm not quoting it perfectly, but it's like to see

  395. him, you, you know who you are. That's amazing to me.

  396. That means that when we see him clearly, we go, Oh my gosh, that

  397. is what we you created us to be. Hallelujah, Lord, isn't that

  398. cool? All right, so one other thing,

  399. just when it comes to to Helen and everyone's going there, Luke

  400. 1247 it says this. And the seven, and the servant

  401. who knew his master's will, and did not prepare himself to do

  402. according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.

  403. But he who did not know yet committed things deserving of

  404. stripes shall be beaten with few.

  405. And I think what that's saying is that there's different levels

  406. of punishment in hell, it would seem.

  407. So, you know, I'm, I'm sure that there's people there that

  408. deserve greater condemnation than others.

  409. And our righteous holy God will justly judge every single

  410. person. So we just leave that with him.

  411. He will take care of that, you know, But again, all of us fall

  412. short of the glory. All of us deserve to receive

  413. judgement from the Lord, but our judgement was put on Christ,

  414. Amen. So again, you know, I just

  415. repeat sort of what I've been saying in the last couple of

  416. weeks, like hell is this place of separation from God.

  417. It's simply what it is. It's being cut off from life.

  418. It is being cut off from goodness.

  419. It is being cut off from the loving Father.

  420. John 14-6 says Jesus said to them, I am the way, the truth,

  421. and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me.

  422. That means that no one is escaping hell but through Christ

  423. Jesus. Whether you lived before,

  424. whether you live now, where, whenever you lived, the only

  425. reason that anyone that was ever born will be with the Father

  426. through eternity will be because of Jesus Christ.

  427. That's it. And you know, that's just the

  428. worst thing about hell. What's the worst thing about

  429. hell? That God's not there.

  430. That's the worst thing. And then knowing that God's not

  431. there and knowing that you could have been where he was would be

  432. the most tormenting truth to have to live with forever.

  433. You know, I've got things from my past that I've done that I

  434. have to live with. And it can torment you, you

  435. know, and I just have to go, Lord, you know, I, I thank God

  436. I'm forgiven, you know, but that thing to know that you could

  437. have been saved and you rejected it will torment you forever if

  438. you should find yourself there. Very scary.

  439. So Hell's God's plan for hell was just to deal with rebellion,

  440. right? When he says that he created

  441. hell for Satan and his angels, right, it's because that they

  442. rebelled against God, right? And those, that the people that

  443. will find their way there are only going there because they're

  444. rebelling in rebellion against God.

  445. God is dealing with rebellion here.

  446. And not just the rebellion of mankind.

  447. There's other rebellion that God's having to deal with Satan

  448. and the, and the angels. There's a spiritual realm where

  449. there's been rebellion and God's having to deal with that.

  450. And so This is why this is the, the reason that he has to put a

  451. place for all of that to go, not just people, but everything,

  452. because they won't honour God as God.

  453. Satan chose not to honour God as God.

  454. You know, I had a conversation with someone this week about,

  455. you know, because people will say things like, well, what sort

  456. of a God just needs to be on it? Like, what sort of a God?

  457. Like how, how selfish do you have to be to have to create

  458. things just to be worshipped? It's just twisted understanding.

  459. It's just like God gave you life.

  460. You wouldn't even be, you would have nothing if he didn't give

  461. you life. Of course we're going to honour

  462. the one that gave you life. Of course.

  463. Only he is worthy of all praise and all honour because he is

  464. God, right? To say that, you know, he's

  465. twisted because he made us just the need to worship him.

  466. He's just. It's the most ridiculous thing

  467. I've ever heard. You like to be alive, don't you?

  468. Yeah, God did that. He didn't have to, right?

  469. And so like, but we've taken everything for granted.

  470. When I think about the life that I've lived and when I think

  471. about the life that people outside of him live now, we take

  472. everything for granted. We take everything for granted.

  473. You know, I take for granted the air that I breathe.

  474. I still do this now. And until you get centered

  475. again, until you go, oh, thank you, Lord.

  476. You know, like Thanksgiving just brings you back to this place of

  477. putting God in his rightful place and, and putting you under

  478. him again. But you know, like I just,

  479. we've, we've all lived this life and just taken life for granted,

  480. taking the sunshine for granted. You know, the, the wicked and

  481. the good. The sun rises every single day.

  482. You know, in God's Jesus says this, he says that, you know,

  483. I've made like the sun to rise on, on the evil and the just

  484. because we're in a period of grace, you know, God's allowing

  485. things to happen right now. He's allowing us to live.

  486. He's allowing people that don't know him that reject him, that

  487. speak against him, that blasphemy, his name, that that

  488. speak against his bride, that speak against believers.

  489. He's allowing those people to wake up, have some air, eat some

  490. food, right? But he's going to bring it all

  491. into account one day. And I just hope that for us as

  492. believers that we're living in a in a, in a respectful way to God

  493. in that you don't he doesn't have to allow you to wake up

  494. tomorrow, right. Our lives are in God's hands.

  495. And I think that even as believers and, and us that, you

  496. know, receive the promises and live in the goodness of God and

  497. have salvation and, and know that our futures have sown up in

  498. him. I think that we, we still need

  499. to just have a solid reminder that we are blessed.

  500. You know, life is tough. Many of us are facing many

  501. things, but life is good. Life is a blessing from God And

  502. there's, there's work to be done.

  503. It's just like we have to just center ourselves daily and just

  504. say, Lord, you know, I'm just going to wake up and be thankful

  505. today because you've blessed us in every way.

  506. You know, how much more us than those that don't even know him.

  507. I think we I think we've got some work to do church.

  508. I think that we've got some work to do in our togetherness to be

  509. thankful for even the opportunity to meet together.

  510. You know, this is amazing thing for us to be together as a body.

  511. You know, I hope we're grateful and thankful for those things.

  512. I'm just going to bring this to a close.

  513. You know, I started off by talking about the fear of God.

  514. You know, it's echoed here in Hebrews 104031.

  515. It says it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the

  516. living God. You know, that's a New Testament

  517. scripture. That's not like, you know, the

  518. God of the Old Testament was, was, you know, the harsh

  519. taskmaster. But then Jesus came along and

  520. he's just all loving and, you know, just don't worry about it.

  521. You know, God is perfect and he loves you.

  522. You know, Jesus didn't say anything that wasn't in line

  523. with the Old Testament Scriptures, you know, and what

  524. This is why we need to dig into the words of Jesus when he talks

  525. about hell and when he talks about the reality of things,

  526. because I think we've just put all that aside and just gone,

  527. you know, Jesus just loves you, you know, come and come and know

  528. Jesus. You know, when we're, when we're

  529. preaching the gospel, it's just like this happy message of like,

  530. you know, Jesus loves you and he, he wants to get to know you

  531. and you can, you know, get all the things that you need and be

  532. happy and have joy and peace. And we're sitting in this room

  533. just as believers just going, yeah, not really, you know, And

  534. it's weird because like we, we share that message with people

  535. and then we're not living it out when it's not our reality.

  536. It's not true, right? Because we have hardships and we

  537. have pain and we have suffering. And now they're looking at us,

  538. just wondering whether it's even true what we're saying because

  539. the witness that we're bearing isn't reflected in our lives in

  540. a real way, Right. But Jesus is wanting us to

  541. declare the goodness of God no matter what is going on.

  542. And you know what people do, they go, you know, there's a,

  543. there's a scripture that says, you know, what is this hope that

  544. you have? What is this hope you have?

  545. You just go. Let me tell you about my Lord.

  546. You know, that's the hope. That is the gospel.

  547. That is like the gospel message that no matter what is going on,

  548. he is Lord, He is my Savior. He is coming.

  549. I'm waiting for him. He has a place for me in

  550. eternity where all things will be in you.

  551. And he's going to all of those things.

  552. You know, the pain that I feel, the tears that I cry, all of

  553. those things will be washed away.

  554. Yeah. And Jesus is going to make sure

  555. that every evil thing, everything that's rejected him,

  556. everything that's ever rebelled against him is put in another

  557. place far from where we are. Amen.

  558. People need to hear that. You know, people want to hear

  559. that because people aren't stupid.

  560. People know when they look at us, when they look at, you know,

  561. the life of a Christian, they know that we're not living in

  562. this place where we're healed all the time and we never die

  563. and we don't grow old and we're not in pain, right?

  564. We're lying to people when we say that, you know, Jesus's will

  565. to heal every single time And, and you know, like that sins

  566. dealt with once and for all and we never have to live in any of

  567. the repercussions of sin. That's not true.

  568. I'm sore, I'm aching, and I know that I won't be in an eternity,

  569. right? That means that there's still

  570. things to do to be dealt with. And this is the dealing,

  571. throwing all of the stuff in the in the lake of fire.

  572. Amen. So we got to bear real witness

  573. to the truth of the gospel and that means being real sometimes

  574. or all the time, being truthful, meet people with the truth.

  575. It's the truth that sets free, not our sugar coating message of

  576. how God's going to do this and God's do going to do that.

  577. Amen. I'm going to close here.

  578. This is this wonderful scripture in Jeremiah 29.

  579. You know it, I'm going to read it.

  580. Jeremiah 29 verse 11 it says, for I know the thoughts that I

    Jeremiah 29:11

  581. think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not

  582. of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

  583. Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me, and I will

  584. listen to you, and you will seek me and find me when you search

  585. for me with your with your whole heart.

  586. And I will be found by you, says the Lord.

  587. And I'll bring you back from captivity, and I'll gather you

  588. from all of the nations, from all the places where I've driven

  589. you, says the Lord, And I'll bring you to the place from

  590. which I caused you to be carried away captive.

  591. The gospel is about God gathering all of the people from

  592. all of the nations everywhere and gathering them to be

  593. together with Him forever. I will be their God.

  594. They will be my people. And so, you know, I just want us

  595. to think about like, I really felt just to say this, there's,

  596. there's people in amongst your life.

  597. You know, I've got some people, you've got some people that

  598. don't know him. Can we just think of one person

  599. right now? Just one.

  600. Just give you guys a second. Just think of one person that

  601. doesn't know him. And I want you to think of

  602. someone that's close to you, close enough for you to reach

  603. out to them. Not like on the other side of

  604. the world, not someone that you don't even speak to anymore.

  605. I want you to think of someone that you have contact with that

  606. doesn't know him. And what I want us to do, just

  607. as we close this meeting, I would like you for you to tell

  608. someone who that person is. And they're going to tell you

  609. your person, their person. It can just be the person next

  610. to you or whatever, but just, we just need someone next to you.

  611. And we're just going to pray. Well, let's just pray now.

  612. Just God's hand upon them that he would reveal himself, that he

  613. would send workers into the field of their life, that he

  614. would use me, that he would give me boldness and power to, to

  615. have the courage to reach out to them.

  616. And I want us to spend this week praying for those, those two

  617. people. And we're going to have to lift

  618. our expectation that God can come and do what we can't do.

  619. Thank you, Lord, Let's just bow our heads and pray.

  620. Father, we we thank you for who you are.

  621. You are a good, good God. You are a good, good Father,

  622. Lord, we thank you, Lord, that for the stirring of our hearts,

  623. for the lost around us. God, we pray that that this

  624. week, Lord, that you would embolden us and encourage us,

  625. Lord, to, to, to work the harvest, Lord, to see eternal

  626. reward. Lord, we thank you, Lord, that

  627. that we partnering with you that we don't have to do any of this

  628. in our own strength. Lord, but Holy Spirit, come even

  629. right now, just empower your people with boldness, with

  630. strength, with courage, with the words of of truth.

  631. We pray, Lord, that we would bear solid witness, Lord, in

  632. these people's lives, Lord, that we've prayed for by name.

  633. Just remind us daily to be praying for these people.

  634. We want to see you move. We want to see salvation.

  635. We want to see your mighty hand to save.

  636. So Lord, empower us, Lord, to partner with you in this all for

  637. your glory in Jesus mighty name, Amen.

  638. Thank you for joining us for today's message.

  639. For more information about The Way Church, please visit

  640. Have a blessed day.