General Description of the Heirs

Opening Prayer and Series Context

0:08 This sermon was preached on Sunday evening, August 7, 1983, at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:20 Now may we once again look to God in prayer, specifically asking that by His Holy Spirit He would attend the preaching of His own infallible Word in this hour. Let us pray.

0:37 Our Father, we thank You that You are never weary of our coming. We have come to You with many concerns in prayer tonight, but O Lord, we come again. We come at this time with the special concern of our heart, focusing upon our own great need as we take Your Word into our hands. O Lord, we desire that Your Word would come to us, not in word only, but in power and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance.

1:12 We acknowledge that only Your Spirit who gave this Word can so open our eyes and move our hearts that we will give to that Word the appropriate responses of faith and obedience which it both demands and which it deserves. Come then by the Holy Spirit and carry us out to Your Word and bring Your Word to us with power. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

1:47 Amen.

1:52 We come this evening to our fifth message in this present series of studies on the weighty and yet glorious doctrines of Heaven and of Hell. We began this series some weeks ago by considering the importance of the biblical doctrines of Heaven and Hell. In the light of biblical life. religion. We then sought to underscore what would be the primary focus of our study, namely the eternal state, heaven and hell not as they pertain to the condition of those who die and their souls immediately go to a place of conscious torment or conscious bliss, that which theologians call the intermediate state. But since the Bible gives the weight of its teaching to the eternal state, the condition and state of heaven and hell after the general resurrection, that will be the peculiar and has been special focus of our study. And then I sought to underscore the proper

Review of 'What is Hell?'

3:04 attitude that we must have in coming to such a study, an attitude of humility, an attitude and disposition. of faith and one of great sobriety in the light of these weighty subjects. And then for several Lord's Day evenings we occupied ourselves with seeking to derive from the scriptures an answer to the question, what is hell? And with our Bibles open before us, we came to the conviction, I trust, that the Bible teaches that hell is a place.

3:42 And a condition of unspeakable misery, torment and woe. The major imagery used to reflect this reality is the imagery of outer darkness and the imagery of the lake or the furnace of fire. And we saw in the second place that hell is a place where soul and body will undergo unspeakable misery, torment and woe. And it is none other than our Lord Jesus who makes this so clear that only a demanded attempt to pervert his words can that only a delivered attempt to pervert his words can miss the point. For it is our Lord who said, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after this have no more that they can do. But fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

4:34 And we saw in the third place that hell is a place where there will be degrees of misery, torment and woe. And we saw in the third place that hell is a place where there will be degrees of misery, torment and woe. torment, and woe. Fourthly, we discover that hell is a place of unending misery, torment, and woe.

4:52 And finally, that hell is a place where men receive the just punishment of God for their sins. Hell is not a correction institution. Hell is not a sanctifying institution. Hell is a place and a condition where God will mete out His just and holy wrath upon the impenitent sinners, and that for eternity.

Introduction to 'Who Will Be Sent to Hell?'

5:21 Now, having raised the question, what is hell, having sought to answer it from the Word of God, in the time allotted tonight, I want to raise and answer from Scripture a second question. And the question is this, who will be sent to hell?

5:41 Who will be sent to hell? And if ever we need to stick to the very text of the Word of God, surely, it is in our attempts to answer so vital a question as the question, who will be sent to this awful place? In a very real sense, if you believe what has already been established from the Word of God, you would be found, scouring the pages of your Bibles for any indications that that awful place could even remotely, even possibly be the place of your ultimate destiny, and that for eternity.

6:27 It is surely as the Word of God answers the question, what is hell? It does indeed furnish us with ample materials to answer the question, who will be sent to hell? And its answer comes in two basic categories. First of all, a general description of the heirs of hell, and then secondly, specific descriptions of the heirs of hell.

6:56 And that two-fold approach will be the organizing principle of our study tonight. Who will be sent to hell? Not according to Pastor Martin. His opinions aren't worth a wooden nickel.

7:11 Who will be sent to hell? The teaching of Trinity Baptist Church is worth nothing if it does not speak according to the letter and the spirit of the Word of God. And may I say, friend, whatever you've been told throughout your entire life by whatever source, it really matters little unless it squares with the Word of God, because it is the God who speaks in the Bible who will do the sending. And He has told us precisely who He will send to hell.

General Description 1: Those Who Know Not God and Obey Not the Gospel

7:42 send to hell. May we then give serious attention to the word of God as we attempt to answer the question, who will be sent to hell? Look first of all at three or four of the general descriptions of those who will be sent to hell. The first one to which I direct your attention is 2 Thessalonians chapter 1. 2 Thessalonians chapter 1. I begin reading in verse 7. And to you that are afflicted, rest with us at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of his power, in flaming fire rendering vengeance to them. Now notice this general description. To them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel.

8:48 Of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction, from the face of the Lord, and from the glory of his might. And this text answers the question, who will be sent to hell, with this general description of the heirs of hell as those who know not God. 2 Thessalonians chapter 1. And to you that are afflicted, rest with us at the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction, from the face of the Lord, and from the glory of his might.

9:18 To them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Christ, who shall suffer for them . And whatever other distinctive sinful characteristics may mark those who are sent to hell, this text clearly establishes that every man, every woman, every boy, every girl within the sound of my voice, who this night does not know God with regard to what the Bible means by that phrase. who does not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, whoever you may be, if you go on and live and die in that condition, as sure as God is God, hell will be your everlasting portion. For let God be true, and every man a liar. And everyone who does not know God, who does not obey the gospel, shall suffer eternal destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might. Now, just a few moments on that general description.

10:30 Those who do not know God. What does that mean? Well, according to the Bible, no man by nature knows God in a saving way. One of the marks of all men by nature is that they do not seek after God.

10:46 There is no fear of God before their eyes. We are described as the Gentiles who know not God. And according to our Lord Jesus, to know God is to come to a saving relationship in the reception of the gift of eternal life. For Jesus, in His high priestly prayer in John 17, said, This is life eternal, that they may know Thee.

11:15 The only truth. True God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. And to know God is to be brought to the place where God, revealed in Jesus Christ, becomes to us our God and Father. And knowing Him in that saving way, we will love Him.

11:35 We will fear Him. We will trust Him. And loving Him, fearing Him, trusting Him, we will obey Him. We will become increasingly like Him as the Holy Spirit.

11:46 We will be like Him as the Holy Spirit, conforms us to the image of His Son. And so whatever your peculiar religious experience may or may not be, if it has not brought you to this saving knowledge of God in Jesus Christ, so that God is more than a word to you, or an abstraction, or a notion, or an idea. He is to you the living God, whom you know in faith, in love, in holy fear. Whom you know.

12:15 As a Father worthy to be loved, and obeyed, and sought. This text says that Jesus Christ at His return will mete out eternal destruction to all who know not God. Moral or immoral. Religious or irreligious.

12:35 A filthy lifestyle, an upright lifestyle. It makes no difference. Those who know not God shall suffer eternally. Eternal destruction.

12:47 Whether they've heard the gospel, or have not heard the gospel. Whether they have read the Bible, or never read the Bible. Those that know not God shall suffer eternal destruction. And then, the second part of this general description is all who obey not the gospel.

Elaborating on 'Obey Not the Gospel': Repentance and Faith

13:07 And notice the language of our Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel is a message that announces, announces some marvelous facts about an amazing person. That person is the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a message about the incarnate God, who is identified as Jesus of Nazareth.

13:33 Who became incarnate, that he might live the life we should have lived, but did not. And died the death we should have died. It is a message about that one who was buried, and was raised again from the dead on the third day. day, and has been seated on the throne of mediatorial power and glory at the right hand of the Father, thus constituting Him formally and officially and visibly God's Lord and Christ.

14:00 Now the text says that message about forgiveness of sin through the Lord Jesus, pardon of all of our iniquities through the blood of His cross, acceptance with God on the basis of His righteousness, that message not only comes with facts to be believed, but commands to be obeyed. Look at the text. All that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not enough to say, oh yes, I believe all of those facts about Jesus, virgin conceived, virgin born, Son of God, lived a sinless holy life, died on the cross for sinners, was buried, raised again the third day, ascended to the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

14:43 You can quote the Apostles' Creed, believe every word of it. But my friend, the question is this. As the gospel impinges upon your will, demanding two things of it, repentance and faith, have you obeyed the gospel? That gospel comes demanding that you stack arms, that you get down off the throne of your own power and stop playing God.

15:10 That you say, oh God, I'm prepared to go out of the God business and let you take the responsibility to take up that business that is rightfully yours in my heart. Repentance is a call to turn from running your own life, thinking your own thoughts about God and yourself and right and wrong and life. Repentance is a change of mind that touches the totality of your whole humanity, your thinking, your feeling, your choosing. It's a radical 180 degree about face, turning away from your own thoughts about God and sin and life and death.

15:45 And heaven and hell and right and wrong and saying, oh God, I'm prepared to have my mind come subject to what you say. All reality will be interpreted by what you say. That's repentance. It affects your mind.

16:00 It touches your affections. The things you've loved because of the perversity of your heart, forbidden things, forbidden paths, evil ways, self-centered ways. Repentance is a repudiation of those objects of affection. Unworthy of a creature made in the image of God, made to know and love the living God.

16:21 It's a repudiation of those things. Repentance touches the will. It is the determination that I shall no longer run my own life, but that I shall by the grace of God plant my feet in the way of God revealed in his word. That's repentance.

16:38 And the gospel comes with a command to repent. Have you obeyed the gospel? See, not have you believed. Do you?

16:46 Say to the facts. I tick them off. One, two, three, four. Yes, I believe them all.

16:50 Have you obeyed the gospel? Are you obeying the gospel right now? Jesus said, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me. Are you obeying the gospel with its call to repentance and then with its flesh-rithering call to faith?

17:10 We talk about simple faith. And in a very real sense, faith is simple. But oh, how fleshly. How flesh-rithering it is.

17:17 Because faith means that I go completely out of myself to trust in another for the most crucial issue that a human being can ever, ever contemplate. The issue of how shall I be prepared to meet God when I die. And faith is a going out of myself. All trust in what I am, what I've been, what I've done, what I've had in the way of background, training, heritage.

17:46 It's turning my back upon everything I have, have done, everything that has accrued to me in the way of privilege and saying, oh God, I come in the nakedness, the emptiness, the barrenness of my native sinfulness, and I rest solely upon Jesus Christ as the ground of my acceptance with you, a holy God. I am prepared to say with the Apostle Paul everything that was given. I am the only one who can be called to the kingdom of God. I have been raised up to be a man of the righteous.

18:19 I am in the law. I have been given a name given to me. I count loss for Christ that I may be found in him, not having my own righteousness which is of the law, but the righteousness which is by the faith of Jesus Christ. It's simple faith.

18:24 But oh how flesh-rithering. To go completely out of yourself to trust solely in another. And you see there's something in us that's very reluctant to relinquish some play into what we've done, what we've accomplished. And to go out of yourself into the Fatherless Word, what we were born to do.

18:29 But I'm not thinking about God. I'm thinking about my God. I can't do that. I can't do it.

18:33 To go completely out of yourself. To trust solely in another. And you see, there's something in us that's very reluctant to relinquish some claim to what we've done. What we've accomplished.

18:46 And to go out of ourselves and look only to Christ. To rest solely upon Christ. My friend, if you obey the gospel, the gospel comes commanding you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. To throw the weight of your guilty soul upon Him.

19:06 It's a divine command. You obeyed the gospel. Being here tonight, as surely as your body is resting down upon that padded chair, He's the weight of your soul resting down upon Christ crucified.

19:28 Is it? If not, you're not obeying the gospel. And if you go on in that condition and die in that condition, listen to this word. In flaming fire, taking vengeance on all that obey not the gospel.

19:47 This is why those of us who believe the Bible and are called to preach it, find ourselves getting in earnest and pleading with you. We're not playing games.

20:04 The message from the living God that says, Be saved and be damned. You have no option with this message. But you embrace it. And be saved to disbelieve it and be damned.

General Description 2: Those Who Cause Stumbling and Do Iniquity

20:23 Who will be sent to hell? According to this first general description, All who do not know God. All who do not obey the gospel. Do you fit that description?

20:38 Then my friend, mark it. Living and dying in that condition. Unless almighty God would be proven a liar.

20:48 I say it with tenderness. But I say it in truth. You, you, will be sent. Then there is a second general description.

21:02 Turn to it please in Matthew's gospel chapter 13. Matthew's gospel chapter 13. Our Lord has given the parable of the wheat and the tares. And he is now interpreting this parable.

21:25 And as he does, we read in verse 40 of Matthew 13, the following words. As therefore the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be in the end of the world. The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire. There, shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.

22:06 Here the Lord Jesus gives as a general description of those who will be sent to hell these words. All things that cause stumbling and them that do iniquity. And the things in this passage are obviously men. For if we read the parallel passage in Luke 17 and Matthew 18, it is men who cause others to sin by their evil example or by their unrighteous influence that are the occasion of stumbling.

22:40 And here our Lord says, everyone who causes stumbling and himself is involved in the fruit of stumbling, that is, in iniquity as a pattern of life, shall be cast into the lake of fire. In other words, our Lord's general description is this. All who make so light of sin that it's a matter of indifference to them whether they cause others to sin or they themselves are given to a path of sin, all such people shall be sent to hell. Do you see it in the text?

23:18 Here's a person so indifferent to whether or not he sins and others sins that it doesn't trouble him at all. That by what he does, by what he promotes and encourages, in his own life, in his family, in society, in literature, in films, in art, he is an occasion of provoking others to sin. He sets before them those things which draw out of their hearts to sin, and he becomes an occasion of stumbling on the bench of Paul's mount,

25:26 a disordered sin of murder, right to the college. We must uphold the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court decision of 1973. Look at the way the word of God He sits in my pastor's study

26:17 and talk with many of the multitudes and it shall be cast also those who do iniquity. The man who picks up what comes off the is not compelled to pick it up. He picks it up because he wants to. And though the pressure comes upon that teenager from all the media to think that she doesn't know what life is about until she's bedded down with a And so it's not only all things that cause stumbling but notice what the text says, all that do iniquity.

27:34 All who give themselves willfully and deliberately as a pattern of life to a sinful lifestyle. Jesus said they shall be cast into the furnace of fire. And frankly, I don't know how professing Christians can have as their role models such filthy rotten people and voluntarily choose to sit and watch them on television when you know they live like animals in heat. Tozer said women with the faces of angels and the morals of alley cats encourage your daughters to set their standards from them. Take this verse seriously, parent. All things that cause stumbling and those that do iniquity. Who will be sent to hell?

28:36 I didn't say it. Jesus Christ, God's incarnate Son said it. All who know not God, obey not the gospel. All things that cause stumbling, and all who do iniquity.

General Description 3: The Wicked

28:53 Let me turn to a further general description. This one is in Matthew 13, 49 and 50. So shall it be at the end of the world, the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the righteous, and shall cast them, that is the wicked, into the furnace of fire. There shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.

29:24 Here the general description is the wicked. The wicked. Who are the wicked? Look in the context.

29:30 Everyone who doesn't deserve the title the righteous. You see it in the passage? He shall sever the wicked from among the righteous. So when the wicked are taken out, who's left?

29:41 Only the righteous. Only two classes. And God have mercy on the Bible teachers that have been telling two generations there's three. Wicked, righteous, and carnal Christians in the middle.

29:56 The Bible knows you sitting here tonight who does not deserve the descriptive name a righteous man, a righteous woman. As that name is defined by the Bible, God puts you in the category of the wicked. And God says the wicked, the wicked of all kinds and stripes, the wicked shall be cast into the furnace of fire. Now who gets the term the righteous?

30:27 Well if we bring together the total witness of the Bible the answer is clear. It is those who like the wicked have no righteousness of their own to begin with. The righteous and the wicked all come from one common stock. The stock of Adam's fallen race.

30:46 And the righteous were once like the wicked in that they were in Adam. They had depraved hearts. They had defiled darkened minds. They had perverse wills.

30:59 They had no love for God nor for His Son. But they came to see that God was righteous. He was upright. All of His standards were just and all of His laws were right and straight and just.

31:14 They came to understand that God had a right to require of them that they live according to His straight, right, just, level ways. And they came to the painful discovery that they had not lived according to His just, straight, upright ways. That they were unrighteous. And as unrighteous men and women, boys and girls, they deserved divine wrath.

31:38 But the gospel came to them. And that gospel held forth a righteousness. An alien righteousness. A righteousness not their own but the righteousness of another that could be theirs if they would embrace the person in whom it was offered to them.

31:54 And so according to 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30, Christ is made unto them righteousness. The righteous are those who have turned away from all hope that they could fix themselves up and have in true faith laid hold of Christ and His righteousness. But that's only part of it. The Holy Spirit who showed them the glory of Christ and the wretchedness of their own hearts, the guilt of their own standing also worked in them and gave them what the Bible calls a new heart.

32:27 And into that new heart God placed His Spirit. And upon that heart He wrote His law so that they have an inward desire to keep the righteous, upright, straight ways of God. And though they still have sin within them, sin is their greatest burden. Sin is their greatest shame.

32:44 Their greatest longing has freely given me righteousness in His Son who blames of my sin and who one day when He's done with me perfect me so that I reflect perfectly the moral image of His beloved Son. The righteous, you see, not only have an imputed righteousness but they have an imparted righteousness. They are not only righteous by imputation and the alien righteousness put to their account in Christ, but they are righteous because they have a new heart that has an affinity for holiness and uprightness that is grieved in the presence of sin. Now, my friend, is that a description of you? However weak and feeble your pantings after holiness may be at times, no matter how obscured your longings to be like Christ at times may be as they become buried under some besetting sin, nonetheless, because life is there, it's like a blade of grass that sticks up to the concrete in the middle of a concrete jungle in a ghetto. The life will find its way out.

34:06 Are you such a person? Are you that righteous person? If not, listen to Jesus. God will sever the righteous from among the wicked and shall cast them into the lake of fire, into the furnace of fire.

The Grace of God and the Lord's Supper

34:22 We've only looked at three general passages and our time has gone, but I want to close on a note that I trust will turn our minds to the blessed privilege that will be ours as the people of God in a few moments. And surely you see the connection. If this is a description of those who will be sent to hell, and all of us by nature deserve to be sent to hell, what has brought us to the place where this night we say, God, I do not fit that description. I do know you.

34:55 I do obey the gospel of your Son. I do not willingly and knowingly and as a course of life cause stumbling or do iniquity. I am not a wicked man, a wicked woman. I am a righteous man.

35:09 I am a righteous woman. You can say that. If you can, let me ask the question. What made the difference?

35:17 Who made the difference? And if you know anything of the Bible and of your own heart, you say it is God. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost who's made the difference. You acknowledge that there was nothing in you that would have ever moved you to turn from your sin and to go through the flesh-withering travail of looking completely different away from yourself to Christ alone as He's offered in the gospel.

35:47 And you know that God did the work that opened your eyes to see your true state, to turn from what you were unto Him and to take what He offered freely in the Lord Jesus. And that's what this table is all about. We come to a table in which we take bread and we break it. We take the fruit of the vine in a cup and we drink it.

36:10 And what are we doing? We are remembering the Lord Jesus in His dying love to us. It's because the Father bruised His well-beloved Son that we do not fear the bruising of God in hell. He took our hell when He died in our place.

36:29 We will never have to cry, My God, my God, why have I been abandoned? Because He cried, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And surely it should be our great delight to come to His table and to remember Him whose dying love is the ground upon which a holy God can forgive such vile and guilty sinners. It is in His livingness that Jesus now keeps us by His perpetual intercession so that by the Spirit He Himself comes to suck, to eat, to drink with us this night as we gather to His table.

37:10 Oh, my friend, if you're not one of us, we hope you'll be made jealous. You can become one of us. I'm not talking about joining the church. I mean one of us who can say by grace that we have been made righteous men and women, righteous in the righteousness of Christ, righteous by the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, and the two are never separated.

37:35 My friend, come by the same door that we've come. That door is Christ, and the hinges on which it turns are the hinges of repentance and faith. Come to the Savior. Embrace His offered mercy.

37:51 Become one of those who by grace will never know experientially what outer darkness and the lake of fire will mean because they have come to know God. They have obeyed the gospel. They have become righteous men and women, boys and girls, by the grace of a saving God. Let us pray.

38:14 Our Father, we are sobered when we turn to Your Word and read these simple, unmistakably clear statements concerning who will be sent to hell. Lord, we cannot say we rejoice in what we've read tonight. Our hearts are pained because we think of the multitudes all around us, some sitting in this very building, who, if they live and die as they now stand before You, must surely hear the words, Depart from me, ye cursed. O God, O God, will You not make Your Word effectual to turn them from their sin, turn them into the way of repentance and faith, and make them righteous men and women? Father, we thank You for Your mercy to those of us, who have been transformed by Your grace. We worship You and praise You for that grace, and ask that we may manifest in our whole life and existence that we love You and long to serve and please You, because You first loved us.

39:41 We ask these mercies in Jesus' name. Amen.