Questions About Hell

Well, good morning. Why don't you grab your message notes that look like this out of the middle of the bulletins that you got handed to as you came in this morning as we continue our series FAQ Frequently Asked Questions? As you get out those notes, I have to say it is so great to be back. You may have heard I did recently visit the nation of Israel with a group from our church. We just got back a week ago. We were there for a couple of weeks, and you are going to hear all about it, but you have to be patient. Because we're going to turn our whole experience there into the sermon series for the fall here at Twin Lakes Church. We're going to call it Jesus Journey, and it will be our 50-day small group study and sermon series for this fall.

We literally journeyed to seven key spots in the life of Jesus Christ, and we filmed teaching for our small home groups at each spot. We are editing it as we speak, and we are writing a book all about the experience that's tied into a logical look at the life of Christ to find out who Jesus really was. I am totally stoked about this, and I just want to say thank you so much for letting us go. Please pray for me, pray for Kelly Welty, Philip Lima, and the others that are editing the video. Pray for those who are helping me proofread the book as we get that whole series ready for the fall. You guys stoked about that? Doesn't that sound good? Jesus Journey filmed on location, steps where Jesus walked.

But what about this series? Well, two weeks before Easter, we asked all 3,500 of you to send in your top questions about the Bible and about faith, and I got a lot of questions about hell. Now, I will admit this is a little bit awkward. I'll just come out and say it for me and potentially for you. Some of you, your friends have been inviting you to come to church for a year, and this is the weekend you chose to come, and you're going, "The pastor's deal is on hell." I knew it, right? It's just a little bit awkward for all churches. In fact, it leads to some awkward things in church bulletins. It reminds me of some of these great moments, great bloopers in church bulletin history. You may or may not have seen these. I'm not making these up—actual church bulletin bloopers like this one: "At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be 'What is Hell?' Come early and listen to our choir practice." Awkward juxtaposition there.

Or the 1997 spring council retreat will be hell, May 10th and 11th, and I bet it was too. And I love this one. This was in an actual church bulletin: "Smile at someone who's hard to love; say hell to someone who doesn't care much about you." I think they meant hello, I think. But the classic is a bulletin blooper in our own Twin Lakes Church bulletin on this topic just last week. I mean, this has got to be some kind of a classic because what happens at this every single weekend? You may or may not know this, we have a little handout for kids here in big church if parents choose to bring their little kids with them. We give them a little bulletin handout, and we give them some crayons, and there's stuff for them to do—there's word searches and so on related to the sermon. And on the back page, it always says every single weekend, 'Draw pictures of the next weekend's sermon topic.' Yeah, don't get ahead of me here. And then that's just automatically plugged in, which we didn't catch in time.

So last weekend, at the top of each children's bulletin, it said, 'Draw a picture of next week's topic: Facts about Hell.' I have a pile of these here, and some of your kids are so creative, I just have to say. This person in hell is wearing an attractive hair bow, but notice they are super glued to hell, so they are in despair. And I also want you to notice this child put her age at 12 and then crossed it out. No, 11—probably thinking, 'I can't lie about my age; I'll go to hell,' right? I got so many of these. I am sure that there were parents who just thought, 'What in the world are they doing at that church?' Although I'll have to say some parents told me, 'René, my kids were remarkably well-behaved this week.' Sweetheart, do you want to go here? Eat your vegetables? You know that conversation didn't happen this week.

But seriously, right up front, I want to say this is one of those areas where sincere believers in Jesus Christ can disagree about the precise details. The Bible gives a lot of leeway here on this topic, and I'm going to give you what is my best take on what the Bible says. But you don't have to agree with me on every point to be welcome here at Twin Lakes Church. If that was the point, my own wife would have to find a new church. So I want to start here with the big picture, really big picture. Why is there even a discussion about hell? Well, because the Bible says one day this is what God will do. Look at Revelation 21:4. We all love this verse. I want you to read this out loud with me. It's in your notes, also on the screen. Ready? Let's go. 'He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.' Show of hands, how many of you love that verse? We love that verse, right? Why? Well, because don't you ever get overwhelmed sometimes when you watch TV or go online and see one story after another, year after year after year after year of war and famine and crime stories about drug dealers and genocidal tyrants and child abusers, and they seem to get away with hurting so many people? And then it's such a relief to remember this verse.

But in order for this beauty to become a reality, something has to first be done with the evil, right? For heaven to be this awesome, God has to do something first. And that comes in a couple of chapters before this in the book of Revelation. Check this out. This is a picture of Jesus that you probably never think about. John says in Revelation 19, starting in verse 11, 'I saw heaven standing open, and there before me was a white horse whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice, he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns.' You know, we're so used to seeing pictures of gentle Jesus, meek and mild. But I want you to go through this phrase by phrase. John says Jesus will be on a white horse. Now, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, what kind of an animal did he ride in on? Shout it out—a donkey, right? Again, a meek, humble animal. But John says the day is coming when he rides into town on a white horse. And this is symbolic because a white horse would have been the steed that a mighty Roman general would have ridden into battle at the head of his entire nation's army.

And it says he judges and makes war. I hear people say, 'How can a loving God be a judging God?' Because he loves so much, he judges evil, which hurts the people that he loves so much. Let me ask you a question. Don't you ever get angry at injustice? Shouldn't God? Don't you ever long for evildoers to get their recompense, right? Shouldn't God? You know, don't you want child abusers and brutal dictators to pay? Well, shouldn't God? John says, check this out: 'His eyes are like blazing fire.' Now, I don't think this means heat rays are coming out of his eyeballs like Superman, you know, and zapping evildoers. This is all kind of poetic here; it's symbolic. What is he talking about? Well, let me explain it this way. There are blue jays—stellar jays, I guess technically—that sometimes make a nest in our backyard, and they lay eggs. And when those eggs hatch, let me tell you, those jays protect their babies fiercely. I have seen those jays chase off big old neighborhood cats that have got to be ten times their weight. In fact, I sometimes bring neighborhood cats into the backyard just to see this happen. No, just kidding. How many of you have ever been scared by blue jays protecting their young ones? They've dive-bombed you. Have you ever experienced that? Those jays can be scary, and their eyes are like blazing fire because they are protecting their babies. And that is the picture here in this verse.

John is writing to Christians who are being so badly persecuted, and he's saying, 'I know you're wondering, but let me reassure you, you're still his babies. He has not forgotten you. He sees you, and his eyes are like blazing fire.' And he's just holding back, and one day Jesus will say, 'You messed with my kids; now you mess with me.' And these verses are a huge comfort to people who've been victims of injustice, especially in nations where Christians are unjustly and brutally persecuted by the authorities. In fact, to that point, John then says, 'On his head are many crowns.' What's all that about? Well, a crown is an indication of authority in this poetic picture that John is painting here. And so often, evil is perpetrated by people in authority, am I right? I mean, Caesars, kings, presidents, politicians, pastors, teachers, coaches, parents—people abuse their authority. And John is saying one day Jesus Christ wears every crown, and one day every single authority will be subject to his authority.

And it'll turn out that all the Hitlers and all the Stalins and all the Saddams and all the coaches and all the teachers and all the senators did not get away with a thing—every authority accountable to one authority. And look what he does: 'And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown.' In other words, all of evil is finally completely destroyed. And what I'm trying to paint here is that when the Bible talks about the last judgment, it's meant as an inspiring image over against all the seemingly ceaseless imagery of brutality. It's this great final image meaning God wins. This is an inspiring picture meant to give us hope. But in our culture, we've grown uncomfortable with this last judgment idea. Why? Well, I think it's because the Bible says that not only evil or the devil will be judged, but so will people. And this makes us squirm. Why? Because we're people.

But Jesus warns against this again and again. In John 5:28, Jesus says, 'A time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out. Those who've done good will rise to live, and those who've done evil will rise to be condemned.' Jesus' words, not mine. He also said, 'This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the wicked from the righteous.' Again, Jesus said it, not me. In fact, these are not unusual things for Jesus to say. Check out these stats: Jesus spoke more about the final judgment than anyone else in the Bible. Does that surprise you? Thirteen percent of Christ's teachings are about the final judgment. More than half of his parables are about the final judgment. And you can't just scissor these verses out of the Bible, but they bug us. Why? Well, one reason, frankly, is I think our picture of what we call hell is pretty skewed. You know, the devil in red pajamas ruling over his red underworld. You know, this is our picture of hell, and so much of it comes from comedy shows or comic books or magazines or cartoons, you know, or pagan mythologies, even Hades and the ruler of the underworld reigning down there. None of this is in the Bible. In fact, almost nothing that is in our popular conception of hell is anywhere in the Bible, and you may be surprised at that.

So what's the Bible say? Well, let's look at biblical answers to common questions about God's final judgment. And these are answers to actual questions that you sent in. First, what is hell? I got a lot of questions about this, and here's how I want to answer it. I just want to look at the words Jesus used to describe it. The word Gehenna—this is the most intense New Testament Greek word that is often translated hell in our Bibles. This is a word used 11 times by Jesus Christ. It's the name of a literal valley outside of Jerusalem, and it was a garbage dump full of worms and flies. Would you agree that you can make choices that make your soul like a dump? Would you agree with that? Anybody, Christian or non-Christian, agrees with that? Choices can have negative consequences. The difference is Christians believe the soul lives forever, so your choices can have forever consequences. It's a dump.

Jesus also calls this place the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Wow, intense. I'll get back to that. He also calls it outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now stop for just a second and just look at these first three descriptions. So is it a dump, or is it a lake of fire, or is it total darkness? Because it can't be fire and dark at the same time. If it's fire, then it's not dark, and if it's dark, then there's nothing making light. And if it's a lake of fire, then the dump's going to be consumed. So which one is it? Well, these are all metaphors describing the same horrible reality. Think about it. What is a dump? That's a place where things are discarded and no longer fulfilling their purpose, right? What does fire do? It disintegrates. What is darkness? Well, in the ancient world, that meant a place far away from the fire light of the village—a place of loneliness. Listen, these are all pictures of a soul that pushes itself away from loving God, pushes itself away from loving others, and retreats more and more and more into just itself, becoming obsessed with itself and its own desires until it's utterly, sadly, tragically alone, cut off, as Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 1, from the presence and the glory of God forever.

Now, let me give you a modern metaphor for this. Show of hands, how many of you have seen the movies based on the Lord of the Rings books? Anybody seen these movies or you've read the books? There's a character in those movies who is absolutely, utterly selfishly fixated on one thing, and what's that character's name? Shout it out. It's Gollum, right? And I'm about to show you a clip from the movie of Gollum. And let me just warn any parents who are here with little ones, this is kind of an intense clip, and so I want you to use your discretion. You may want to distract your kids, like with the kids' bulletin. No, on second thought, don't do that, but draw a picture of next week's sermon: the slaughter of the priest of Baal. No, that's not next week's sermon. But here's the thing: in this picture, you'll see how when it comes to the ring, Gollum lusts for it. He longs for it. He lives for it until his whole life becomes about his desire, and this transforms him. He gains the world but loses his soul and his own world, precious.

Okay, I'm creeped out. But to me, what a great metaphor for the soul that gets so wrapped up in its own pursuits, its own pleasures, that it pushes everyone and everything else away until it really creates its own hell, right? And because souls last forever, they exist forever that way. I'm convinced that this is what Jesus Christ must see when he looks down at our pursuit of gold or silver or pleasure or fame or anything else here in this world, and we don't love God and love people. I love the way John Orpert puts it, and you know I had to throw a John Orpert quote in. This is my weekly John Orpert quote. Here it is: 'You are an eternal being. You will never cease to exist. And every day, little bit by little bit by little bit, you and I are turning into something. Our lives have a moral, spiritual trajectory. And we should be afraid of choosing or drifting or growing into the wrong kind of eternal person. This is a real possibility.'

So yes, there is a hell—not the hell of movies or cartoons, but a state where your soul is separate from the glory of God. Like Mark said two weeks ago, 'Heaven is where Jesus is, and hell is where Jesus isn't.' And that leads naturally into the next question. I got this one emailed to me a lot: Why in the world would a loving God want to send people to hell? And I want to be as clear about this as I know how. He doesn't. And I really hope if you don't take anything else away today, you take this. Listen, no one on earth, not the most loving and generous person, wants people—all people—to spend eternity with God in heaven one, one millionth as much as God does. Look at John 3:17. Jesus said it: 'God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world,' meaning all human beings, 'in order that the world might be saved through him.' 2 Peter 3:9: 'The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all,' every single human being, 'should come to repentance.' Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy 2:4: 'God our Savior desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.' Listen, no one wants to go to heaven one, one millionth as much as God wants that person to go to heaven. And that is why God paid the ultimate price so that you and I would not have to go to hell. And we're going to remember that price at communion today.

But if you recoil at the idea of anybody going to hell, you know why you feel that way? Because you're made in the image of God. And that's how God feels. Now that leads right into the next question, which is, well, if God doesn't want anybody to go to hell, why do people end up there? Because the Bible is very clear on this. God takes human freedom very seriously. He made people free, and he will not violate their free choice. John 3:19: Jesus says after he's just said two verses before that he didn't come to condemn the world, but that there is judgment, and this is the judgment. This is the verdict: 'Light has come into the world.' And what a chilling sentence: 'Men love darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.' Amazing. That means people clutch their pathetic little golden rings and crawl into their dark holes and choose darkness over light. C.S. Lewis, the Oxford professor and famous author, said, 'There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in hell choose it.'

In fact, he goes on: 'Without that self-choice, there could be no hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires heaven will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock, it is opened.' God allows people to choose, but that leads right into the next question: Why? Why does there have to be a final judgment? Why doesn't God just wave his wand and pretend none of this ever happened? What purpose does it serve? Three things. Jot this down in your notes. First, without it, there would be no real choice. Because without a true alternative, there is no true choice, right? Free will, so-called, is just an illusion without choices that have actual consequences. And without it, there would be no real justice. Justice. There's a guy named Miroslav Volf. That's a great name, isn't it? Miroslav Volf. He's a Croatian who's now a professor at Yale, and he saw firsthand the violence in his home country. And he says, 'If God were an angry and an injustice in deception and didn't want to make a final end to violence, that God wouldn't be worthy of worship.' In fact, my practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine justice. And without it, there would be no real heaven, because there can't be evil in heaven, right? God must judge evil before it infiltrates heaven for heaven to be truly good.

Now, somebody asked me, 'Well, okay, I can see your logic, but is this really fair to everyone?' Very common question I got. It's often phrased this way: 'What about people who've never heard?' You ever wondered that one? That's a good question. Is this really kind of a fair deal? Well, the Bible doesn't say precisely in so many words what God's plans are for all the people in every circumstance on the planet, but it gives hints. It says in Romans 1:20: 'For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men—and women, I might add—are without excuse.' I want you to circle the words 'without excuse.' This means God is perfectly just. This means he will never judge anyone for responding to something that they cannot respond to, of course. And so I believe we will all be held accountable for what we know. Now, this verse implies we all know a lot, and we will be held accountable for that and judged by that. By whom? Look at this next crucial verse. Jesus said, 'I am he who searches hearts and minds.' Revelation 2:23. This verse is so important and answers so many questions. I actually decided I want us to memorize this right now as a church. So say this off the screen with me. Just say every word you see on the screen. Jesus said, 'I am he who searches hearts and minds.' When somebody asks you, 'So who do you think is going to heaven or going to hell?' You tell them, say it out loud again, 'Jesus said, "I am he who searches hearts and minds."'

When you're worried about, 'Well, what about that person I really love very much, and I don't know if they ever accepted Christ?' You remind yourself, say it with me, 'Jesus said, "I am he who searches hearts and minds." I want you to circle a couple of words. Circle 'he,' not 'me.' Aren't you glad the judge is Jesus and not me or you? In fact, of all the people who have ever existed on planet Earth, can you imagine somebody that you would rather have as a judge than Jesus? Listen, there are a lot of unanswered questions in the Bible about hell. But I am not a Christian because I believe in hell. I'm a Christian because I trust in Jesus Christ. And I can take all my unanswered questions about hell or about heaven or about suffering or about the Bible or any of the other topics that we've been covering in this series. And because I trust implicitly in Jesus, I can at some point lay those questions at his feet and say, 'I trust you. I trust the character of Christ. I trust the heart of Jesus.' He, the rider on the white horse, is faithful, and he is true, and he is loving, and he is fair, and he is just. And I can trust him with all judgment.

Now, there's something else that this implies. It says, 'He judges, not me.' This means that no one in this room, listen carefully, can look around at the people in this room and suppose that we know who's going to heaven and who's going to hell. You can't look around and make that judgment. Why? Because say it with me: Jesus said, 'I am he who searches hearts and minds.' And not any one of us can go downtown to Pacific Garden Mall and walk down there and look at people and think, 'Oh brother, I'm glad I'm not that person going to hell,' or 'Those people are just lost people,' or 'Oh, there's someone on my body who's going to heaven with me.' You can't make that discernment. Why? Because Jesus said, 'I am he who searches hearts and minds.' You can't walk up to UCSC and look around and think to yourself, 'Oh, these people just going to hell.' Why? Because Jesus said, 'I am he who searches hearts and minds.' Him, not you. Your role is ambassador. His role is judge. And part of the problem of Christianity is we get those roles mixed up. Your role is ambassador for him; his role is judge.

Now I want you to circle another phrase here. Circle the phrase 'hearts and minds.' That means he looks beyond the words. He looks beyond the religious vocabulary, which can be faked or forgotten or never known. He looks beyond the circumstance. He looks beyond the culture. And he searches hearts and minds. That means he will always totally judge completely, fairly. Now, before I move into the last question there on page two and then into the conclusion on page three, I just want to say maybe this discussion has just raised a whole bunch of new questions for you. And you've got questions about all kinds of stuff. Every single Wednesday in this series, we've got a whole panel of pastors, including me. We're going to be over there in Munskey Hall starting at 6:30 for an hour and 15 minutes. And it's like, 'Stump the pastors.' You can ask us anything you want on this topic. It's an open forum, and I welcome your questions because there's a lot here that we are not covering. There's so much depth to this.

But let me dive into that final question. Somebody asked, 'Isn't God supposed to be forgiving? He is, right?' So then how could he send people to hell? Well, God longs to forgive. I love this verse. Some of you may have never seen this verse before. The Bible says, 'Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die.' And that is just the truth, right? But God doesn't take away life. Instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him. I love that. He devises ways. God stays up nights devising ways for people to not go to hell. That's what he does. He doesn't devise ways of sending you to hell. He devises ways of saving you from hell. And so that begs the question: what has he devised? In other words, how do I respond to all this? Page three. Somebody told me, 'René, the primary reason I want to know about hell is I'm afraid I'm going there,' right? All those fire and brimstone sermons from my childhood keep replaying in my head. Anybody here relate to that?

Well, here's the big idea in this message. With all these, answering all these questions with all the details, don't miss this. Here is the Bible's big picture. There is a last judgment, and there are two possible outcomes. One is super good, and one is super bad. And you want to be on the super good side. So how do you make sure? Common religious answer: here's your list of rules. We came up with it for you. A list of stuff to do on one side, a list of sins to avoid on the other side. And the better you do at this list, the more likely you are, although you can never be certain that you are going to heaven when you die. How many of you have heard a version of that answer at some point in your life, right? Guess what? Not the Bible's answer. Not in the Bible.

So what's the Bible's answer? Jesus tells a story one time, and he says, 'Two guys go up to the temple to pray.' Two guys. He says, 'The first guy stands up, and he gives a speech.' And he says, 'Oh God, I thank you so much that I did all the right stuff, and I didn't do all the wrong stuff, and I know for sure I'm going to heaven. I'm so pure and good, unlike this fellow over here who is obviously going to hell. You're lucky to have me. I'm going to improve heaven with my death and going there. I'm awesome. Thank you, God, for my awesomeness. Amen.' Basically, I'm paraphrasing. That's basically what he says. And Jesus says, 'The second guy falls flat on his face.' He says one sentence: 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' And Jesus says, 'Be like the second guy.' He says, 'I tell you the truth. That second man is the one who went home justified.'

Now, do you know any Christians like that first guy? I do. I've been that guy a lot of times in my life. But Jesus says the only thing—you can't—the answer of how to get to heaven and avoid hell isn't focus on all these religious rules. You know why? Because that's still just a ring in the palm of your hand. You're still just focusing on you and your own little life. And whether or not you're holy enough or happy enough or righteous enough or good enough or kept the rules enough, it's still all about me, me, me. The way to change your trajectory is to change what you focus on. If you're focused on yourself, you're going the Gollum way. You change what you focus on to Jesus, you're going another direction. And that's why Jesus says, first of all, you've got to receive God's mercy. Receive the pardon of God. I love the way that Jesus puts it here. He says, 'Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned. He has crossed over from death to life.' He has changed his trajectory. And I want to say, some of you are saying, 'Too late for me. I'm heading for hell, pastor.' I've got to tell you something; I might surprise you. As a pastor, I'm always surprised, not by people who tell me I don't believe in hell. I actually don't hear that a lot. I'm surprised by people who tell me in their private moments, 'I think I'm going to hell.' And I know, based on my experience, there's people here right now who feel like this. And I want to tell you from the bottom of my heart, there's hope for you. God is devising ways to save you. And one of the ways he has devised is to get me to preach this message for you today and tell you there is hope for you.

All you have to do is throw yourself on the mercy of God and change your focus and change your trajectory. It is hope. God has a future. God has a purpose. God has a plan for you in this life and in the life to come. And then once that you just allow yourself to immerse yourself in that mercy pouring out from God through Jesus at the cross, then what happens is you turn outward instead of inward, and you reach out in God's love. And the result of really understanding what the Bible says about final judgment isn't your own judgment; that's God's job. It's compassionate, loving outreach. I want to show you one of my all-time favorite verses in the whole Bible, and I'll close with this. In Matthew 16:18, Jesus says, 'And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.' Circle that phrase, the gates of Hades, the gates of hell, will not overcome what Jesus is doing in the—this is an awesome picture because we often think of the church as sort of huddled together in a little holy fortress while the powers of hell rage all around us, right? But Jesus turns things back just upside down here. He paints a totally different picture. He says, 'No, hell is the kingdom that's huddled behind the gates, and here comes the church, and it's led by Jesus, and it's battering against the gates of hell.'

How do we batter the gates of hell? Rescuing those who are on a trajectory there, one soul at a time. Listen to this email, and I'll try to get through this without crying. A man wrote me, 'René, this is a man who was on the wrong trajectory. He was Gollum in the making. "René, this is going to sound crazy, but I've been bombarded with the thought, now is the time to leave your wife and kids. They'd be better off without you anyway. And instead of taking my thoughts captive, I entertained them and even began making plans. I knew what was wrong, but my self-worth was at an all-time low. And then during your message, you said something about how God is not done with you yet. And the more I listened, the heavier the weight of God and conviction became. I grabbed my wife afterward, and I told her everything, and we prayed, and we cried, and we cried. It was incredible. Looking back, I can't believe what happened. I was saved at so many levels. And since then, my wife and I have spoken to two other couples who turned out we're in the same place, and they're now attending church with us." And I read that, and I think in the gates of hell, we're battered as people on a trajectory for hell were saved.

I've got to tell you, one of the most moving things during the trip to Israel the past two weeks for me—and this was a surprise to me. I wasn't expecting it—were the baptisms in the Jordan River. This was so emotional for me because so many of these people were getting baptized for the very first time in their lives. And some of these people with tears of joy shared with our group some of them how they were coming to faith after years away from God. Some of them years of addiction or years of outright rejection of God. And now look at them. And every time I look at these pictures now, I think in the gates of Hades got battered a little bit more with that one. And the gates of Hades got battered a little bit more with that one and a little bit more with that one and a little bit more with that one. This one here, this is why I live. And this is why we live as a church—to prevail against the gates of hell in the here and the hereafter. Can there be a more compelling mission for life or for a church? So listen, I know what we've talked about—a tough subject—but don't leave the day afraid, because the message of the Bible isn't this: that you kind of get fire insurance and you could get saved from hell by throwing yourself on God's mercy, right? It's that you get a mission. It's that Jesus Christ is building His church, and you're a part of it, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

Let's pray and let's thank our great God together. Bow your heads with me. I want us to remember in a moment the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the price He paid to devise a way. But listen, I wanted you to rediscover the Bible's teaching about this as something inspiring today, but maybe it left you a little bit insecure. Well, here's your chance to run into the arms of the God who longs for you to be with Him for all eternity, even more than you long for it. And so as communion has passed now, can I just say, be like that second guy. Say, 'Lord, I love you so much. Have mercy on me, a sinner. Thank you for rescuing me. Not just so I could have a better life in the few decades on this planet, but rescuing me for all eternity. God, thank you for your grace.' In Jesus' name, amen.