Body and Soul Will Suffer

Driving home: So that we are forced... We are forced to this logical conclusion that we must have the Christ of Scripture and his hell or have another Christ of our own.

Paul's declaration in Acts 20 that he was 'clear from the blood of all men' is used as an example of a minister's confidence in having declared the whole counsel of God, setting the stage for the sermon's difficult topic.

The Apostle Paul could declare with good conscience, as recorded in the 20th chapter of the book of the Acts, that he was clear from the blood of all men. By that he meant that he had discharged his spiritual responsibility to men, so that if they were found in that awful day condemned and damned, it would not be on his account. And he then goes on to say that the reason why he has this confidence of his being clear of their blood is that he shunned not to declare unto them all the counsel of God. And so if any servant of Christ, pastor, evangelist, or missionary, Sunday school teacher, whoeve...

0:03 - 1:03 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He briefly reviews the previous week's sermon, establishing hell as a place of unspeakable torment, using Christ's imageries of 'outer darkness' (privative suffering) and 'furnace…

The imagery of a person cast out of an oriental banquet house into the dark night is used to explain 'outer darkness' as the privative sufferings of hell, being cast out of light, life, joy, and provision.

And to do this, we simply took the statements of our Lord concerning two vivid imageries used to describe, hell as a place and a condition of unalleviated suffering, torment, and woe. The figure of outer darkness used three times in the Gospel of Matthew, and the figure of the furnace of fire, or Gehenna, used many, many times in the Gospel of Matthew. The concept of outer darkness bespeaks what I call the privative sufferings of hell. As the person in oriental society, who was cast out of the banquet house that was full of light and mirth and joy and provision, put out into the darkness of ni...

3:30 - 4:58 Read in full sermon

Driving home: As a body, soul, entity, a true human being comprised of soul and of body, man carried out his rebellion to God, lived indifferently to the claims of the law and of the gospel. So when God comes to mete out his punishmen…

The question 'is God some kind of a fiend that he should resurrect the body only to make it a faggot for the flames of hell?' is a rhetorical metaphor to introduce the 'why' of bodily suffering in hell.

Why? Why? Why? If the wicked are resurrected only to be consigned to hell and if the torments of the soul are such that a man who is merely suffering in his soul as the rich man in Luke 16 cries out I'm tormented in this flame is God some kind of a fiend that he should resurrect the body only to make it a faggot for the flames of hell?

20:22 - 20:45 Read in full sermon

Driving home: When the soul is at rest, the worst of physical pains can be endured. ... But a wounded spirit, who can bear?

Stories of martyrs singing to their death despite physical torture are used to illustrate how a soul at rest can neutralize physical pain, contrasting it with the unbearable pain of a 'wounded spirit'.

The soul, that noblest part of man, that in which man bears most of the image of God, that part of me that experiences love and joy and peace and anger and fear, that part of me which has as its very essence knowledge, memory, reflection, conscience, that part of me which is worth more than the whole world. For our Lord said, What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? When the soul is at rest, the worst of physical pains can be endured. You've read the stories as I have, many of you, of martyrs whose bodies are placed upon the rack, who are tied to the stake a...

27:04 - 28:27 Read in full sermon

Driving home: When the soul is at rest, the worst of physical pains can be endured. ... But a wounded spirit, who can bear?

The example of doctors attributing a high percentage of physical problems to soul issues is used to confirm the intricate connection between the soul and body, and how a 'wounded spirit' is unbearable.

so the body just quit on them. Any of you who have had any contact with doctors and medicine, you know that many doctors will put the percentage up as high as 75%. They say of their patients that they deal with, they're convinced that the problems of their bodies are tied in intricately to the problems of the soul. When the soul, the spirit of a man, is at rest and in joy, he can bear the intensest of physical pains. But a wounded spirit, who can bear? Our experience confirms this. We have seen people whose case physically was, left nothing to be desired. They had every physical comfort imagin...

28:27 - 29:09 Read in full sermon

The point: Listen carefully to the truth about hell, as God may use it in a unique way in your heart.

The pervasive philosophy of the current generation, influenced by media, is described as viewing the body as a 'sensual playground' to be used for pleasure as one pleases, which Martin then refutes.

The movies, the TV, and even the so-called innocent Sears Awards catalog. It has as its whole pervasive mood that the body, with all of its capacities for pleasure, is a living playground somehow deposited at your doorstep to do it as you please.

33:42 - 34:04 Read in full sermon

The point: Give yourself to Jesus Christ, repent, and take pardon from sin, for He bore the agonies of hell for sinners.

The analogies of a starving man dying with bread at his lips and a thirsting man dying with water at his lips are used to highlight the tragedy of those who perish in hell despite the gospel's provision of Christ.

All the sins that you've done in your body and your soul, I will freely forgive and blot them out. What would you think of a starving man who continued to starve and died when bread was held to his lips? What would you think? What would you think of a man thirsting, yea, thirsting even unto death, who died of thirst while water was held to his lips?

42:34 - 43:00 Read in full sermon