I want you to open your Bibles
this morning to the book of Ezekiel. I'm going to be reading two verses
of Scripture found in Ezekiel 21. Chapter 21, beginning with
verse 8. I have a very solemn subject
today. I'll be speaking to you on the
subject, when the lights go out on the road to hell. When the
lights go out on the road to hell, and a very solemn warning. voiced by the prophet Ezekiel
in chapter 21, verse 8. Let me read this text to you.
The word of the Lord came to me, son of man, prophesy. And say, thus saith the Lord,
a sword is sharpened and polished. It is sharpened that it may make
a great slaughter. It is polished that it may flash
and glitter like lightning. Shall we then rejoice? Shall
we then make merry? My friends, Ezekiel, while only
a young man, was taken captive along with many of his friends
by Nebuchadnezzar, and he was placed by the river Kedar, and
there he prophesied for 22 years in captivity. He spoke to Israel
for God. He sent messages of mercy. He
sent messages of warning. But the prophecies he delivered
were not heard. And in the seventh year of his
captivity, just three years before God destroyed Jerusalem and the
temple was burned down, God spoke a special message to Israel by
the mouth of this prophet Ezekiel, a message of warning, a fearful
message. He said, son of man, prophesy
and say, thus saith the Lord, I have sharpened my sword. there's going to be a great slaughter. I've polished my sword that it
may flash and glitter like lightning." Well, these messages were sent
to Jerusalem by this lone prophet down by the riverside, but they
did not hear. They ignored every prophecy.
They ignored every warning of the wrath to come. It was a time
of great hardness of heart, the Scripture says, a time of great
indifference in the land of Israel. And this indifference was marked
by three things. First of all, everything was
mirth and sensuality. The people were making merry.
The people were given to materialism. They were given to fun and games
and they were given to materialism. Everything the scripture says
was mirth and sensuality. And then secondly, the prophets
and preachers of that day were crying peace. peace. And what was remarkable was that
the people liked to have it so. They didn't want to hear the
truth. They didn't want to hear this man who spoke for God. They
wanted to hear the man who said everything's all right. Ezekiel
said everything's not all right, but they didn't want to hear
him. The prophets of the people cried, peace, peace. And even
though there was no peace, They liked to have it so. And the
third mark of this state of utter indifference and hardness of
heart was this. First of all, everything was
mirth and sensuality. And secondly, the prophets did
not cry out against it. They did not warn the people.
They were not faithful to the people. They talked only of love
and not of wrath. They talked only of mercy and
not of righteousness. And thirdly, the house of God
was no longer a house of prayer. But it was a house of ritualism
and ceremonialism and dead religion. And this lone prophet, described
by Charles Haddon Spurgeon as the lone prophet by the river,
heard the thunder of approaching judgment. He saw God arming himself
for war. He saw the glittering sword of
justice in God's hand and he cried out, the sword of the Lord
is sharpened. The sword of the Lord is polished. There's going to be a great slaughter. Shall we continue to rejoice?
Shall we continue to make merry? Shall we continue to cry, peace,
peace, when there is no peace? We've reached the point of no
return. Prepare to meet God. Is not our day much like that
day? Are we not in the same situation
as Jerusalem of old? When I read this prophecy and
when I studied these marks of indifference and hardness of
heart, I thought that's a perfect description of our day. Is not
everything today fun and games? Is not our day marked by mirth
and sensuality? Everything's a joke. Old age
is a joke. Death is a joke. Heaven's a joke. Hell is a joke. Anytime people
talk about preachers, they make a joke about it. When they talk
about church, they make a joke about it. Men do not hesitate
to make light of the most sacred things that we know anything
about. Everything's fun and games. Everything's a joke. Our whole
day is given to entertainment and materialism. That's the mark
of this day. That was the mark of indifference
and hardness of heart in the days of Ezekiel. In this day
of Jerusalem's doom, just preceding its destruction and the burning
of the temple, everything was mirth and sensuality. And that's
the mark of 1980. And the second mark, the preachers. What did they cry at Ezekiel's
day? Peace. Peace. There was no peace. God
was at war. God was just on the verge of
bringing total destruction upon these people, and down there
among the people, the preachers were saying, God is love. Everything's
all right. All is well. Where were the sons
of thunder? Where are they now? Where are
the voices of warning? Where are they now? Where was
the conviction of sin? Where is it now? Where were the
cries for mercy? Where are they now? God is love. God is holy. God is gracious,
God is merciful, He surely is, but God is wrath, and God is
just, and God is righteous, and God will by no means clear the
guilty, and God will deal with men according to His justice
and His righteousness. And we may go on crying, peace,
peace to this generation, but my friends, the Scripture says
there is no peace, not outside of Christ. Christ is the Prince
of Peace. He's the king of peace. He's
the only one who can bring peace. And outside of Christ, there's
nothing but wrath and judgment. And our God is a consuming fire
outside of Christ Jesus. What's the third mark of this
state of utter indifference? Just before God steps in in wrath
and judgment, everything is mirth and sensuality. The preachers
cry, peace, peace, all is well, when all is not well. And the
house of God was no longer a house of prayer. It was no longer a
place of worship. But our Lord, when he drove out
the money changers, said, You've made my house a den of thieves. What's the church today? Describe
the church today as you see it. I'll describe it as I see it.
I see the church today as big business. Money is more important
than the presence and power of the Spirit of God. Numbers, the
number of people attending is far more important than the presence
and power of the spirit of the living God. The church today
is big business. The church today is a social
club. The church today is a place of
singing and entertainment. My house, God said, shall be
called a house of prayer. Is it a house of prayer? Is it
a house of meditation? Is it a house of worship? Is
it a house where God meets with his people and speaks to their
hearts and exhorts them and strengthens them and inspires them? Is that
the house of God today? No, sir. It's big business. It's
a den of thieves. The mark of this day is eat,
drink, and be merry, as it was in the days of Noah, our Lord
Jesus Christ said, and they ate and drank and they married and
given in marriage and did not know. till the flood came and
took them all away. This is the day of indifference.
It's the day of hardness, of heart. Everything's fun and games,
materialism. Everything is given to sensuality,
satisfying and pleasing and pampering this flesh. And the preachers
are crying, all is well, peace, peace. We're in the greatest
religious revival known to mankind, and that's true, too. Not much
spirituality, but a lot of religion. Not much presence of God, but
a lot of noise, because the house of God is no longer a house of
prayer. It's no longer a place where
men go to meet God. It's now a den of thieves. It's
big business. It's a social club. It's where
men go to meet one another. We may have passed the point
of no return. I do not know. Maybe this is
the lone prophet by the riverside, crying out, swimming against
the stream. saying what nobody's saying or
dares to say. The day may be spent. The night
may be drawing near. The day of grace may be over.
The dark clouds of God's wrath may be gathering. His sword may
be, right now, sharpened for a great slaughter. It may be
polished that it shall flash in glitter-like lightning. The
voice ought to be heard. God is sharpening his sword,
hell is moving up to meet you at your coming, and he says,
these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous
underlie everlasting, when the lights go out on the road to
hell. Now, my friend, judgment, condemnation,
and the wrath of God are not pleasant subjects, and they usually
meet with much opposition from the natural man. And it may be
that someone's already turned off his television set and he
says, I don't want to hear these things. Well, they didn't want
to hear Ezekiel either. They wouldn't hear it. He cried out
in the seventh year of his captivity, God's sharpening his sword, God's
arming himself for war, there's going to be a great slaughter.
And three years later, the city fell and the temple was burned
and the people were destroyed. And this may be the voice that
God's using in this day, I do not know, but you'd better listen.
Sure, we have a message of mercy, but we also have a message of
warning. Sure, we have the good news that Christ died for sinners,
but we have the message of warning. If sinners do not find Christ
to be their refuge and hiding place and secret dwelling place,
they're going to have to deal with the wrath of a holy God.
I want to point out several things this morning that I think are
important, and the first of which is this. There are several reasons
for preaching judgment. I'd rather preach grace, but
there are several reasons for preaching judgment. I'd rather
preach mercy and love and salvation by the blood of Christ Jesus,
but there are reasons for preaching eternal punishment. And the first
reason is this. It's in the Bible. That's a good
reason, isn't it? We're told to preach the Word,
not the part of the Word that appeals to us, not the part of
the Word that we think will appeal to the people. But we're told
to preach the Word. And judgment for sin is not the
invention of men. It is taught in the Word of God.
Endless hell is in the Bible just as often as endless heaven.
Did you know that? Well, why do we talk all the
time about endless heaven and have nothing to say about endless
hell? There's another reason why judgment for sin ought to
be preached and eternal punishment. It's because it's not possible
for a man to accept part of the Bible and not believe all of
the Bible. Can you accept the mercy of God
and reject the justice of God? Can you accept the love of God
and reject the wrath of God? He that believeth on the Son
of God hath life. He that believeth not the Son
of God hath not life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
What do you want to do? Cut that verse in two and just
quote some of it? The wages of sin is death, but
the gift of God is eternal life. to everyone who believes in Christ
Jesus. Now, what do we do? We just quote
half of it and leave off the other half? Well, that's not
honest. What kind of spiritual leader
is it that only tells people part of the truth? Paul said,
I've kept back nothing profitable unto you. I have not shunned
and declared unto you the whole counsel of God. It's not right
to withhold that which is true from those to whom we preach.
One morning, about 7.30 or 8 o'clock, my telephone rang, and the lady
on the other end of the line said, my sister-in-law is threatening
to jump off the bridge in Ashland, the bridge that crosses between
Ashland and Colgrove Ohio, and said she listens to you on the
radio occasionally, and it may be you'll be able to help her
or persuade her against committing suicide. She's on her way to
the bridge now. So I got in my car and drove
down to the bridge, and I parked and waited until I saw a lady
start walking up the walkway, up to the center of the bridge,
and I got out of the car and followed her. And she stopped
right in the middle of the bridge and started looking over the
edge. And I slipped up behind her and
took her by the arm in a very firm grip, and I began to talk
to her. She said, why don't you go off
and leave me alone? I told her who I was. She said, oh, I've
listened to you on the radio, But she said, I'm not a believer,
I'm not a Christian. And she told me about how unhappy
her life was, how unhappy her married life and how unhappy
she was with her children and how all of these things had just
piled up and forced her to the point of suicide. And she said,
there's nothing you can do to stop me, not a thing. So you
may as well go on and leave me alone. But I said, I wish you
wouldn't. And I talked to her about Christ
and the gospel and salvation and nothing seemed to help. And
finally, I said, well, my dear lady, if you kill yourself in
unbelief without knowing God in Christ Jesus, you're going
to hell. And she looked at me and her
eyes popped with fire and she said, I don't believe in hell.
Well, I turned loose of her arm and I was hoping this would get
results. I stepped back and I said, well,
jump and find out. You'll find out five seconds
after you leave this bridge whether there's a hell or not. She said,
do you really think there's a hell? I said, the Bible teaches that
there's a hell. And I fear the wrath of God. And you'd better fear the wrath
and judgment of God, too. By the fear of God, men depart
from evil. She said, I still don't believe
there's a hell. I said, well, try and find out. She said, I
don't want to. I said, well, let's go home.
Will you go home with me? And you and my wife and I talked
it over and read the Word of God and prayed together, and
she did. But my friends, I wouldn't be
honest with people if I didn't tell them that God's going to
punish sin. I wouldn't be telling you the
truth if I told you everything's love and no wrath, everything's
mercy and no judgment, everything's grace and no righteousness. God
will punish sin. And the second thing is this,
our Lord Jesus Christ Himself is responsible for the doctrine
of hell. This is not the invention of the Apostle Paul. In fact,
Paul said very little about it. Christ is the one that talked
about hell, judgment, eternal condemnation. A man who denies
endless punishment, eternal death, his conflict's not with the preacher.
You may feel like your conflict's with me, but it's not. It's like
Peter said to Ananias and Sapphira, you haven't lied to me, you've
lied to the Holy Spirit. Your conflict's with God, not
with me. Your argument's not with the messenger. It's with
the one who sent the message. There's no need to get angry
at the preacher. Your anger is against God Almighty. Christ
is the one that taught this doctrine of hell. Listen to him, Matthew
5, 22. Now listen to the Word of God. Christ said, Whosoever
shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. In Matthew
10, 28, he said, fear him who is able to destroy both body
and soul in hell. Matthew 23, 33, he said to the
Pharisees, ye generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation
of hell? In Mark 9, 43 through 48, he
talked about if your right hand offends you, if your right foot
offends you, if your right eye offends you, cut them off, pluck
them out, It's better to go through life with one eye or one hand
or one foot than to have two to be cast into hell, where the
worm dieth not and the fire is never quenched. And in Luke 16,
22, he talked about the rich man died, and in hell he lifted
up his eyes, being in torment. And he said, Father Abraham,
send Lazarus that he may dip his finger in water and touch
my tongue. I'm tormented. in this flame. This is Christ speaking. This
is not a fanatical, radical, straight-corner preacher. This
is Christ Jesus the Lord talking. And your conflict's not with
me or any other preacher who dares to warn you of the certainty
of death and the certainty of judgment and the eternality of
hell. It's Christ that taught this.
And in that story, that he gave about the rich man in hell. He
told us some things about hell. If you want to know some things
about hell, everybody seems to be taken up with the fire in
hell, but that's the least of our worries. I'm not sure it's
lit for fire anyway, but it doesn't make any difference. First of
all, our Lord said hell is a place of memory. Memory. Memory that
causes the heart to ache and break and grieve. Memory. He said, son, remember. Remember. In your lifetime, you had good
things, and now you're tormented. Just spend your time remembering.
Spend eternity remembering all the good things, the opportunities,
the privileges that won't be there now. And then hell is not
only a place of memory, it's a place of truth. Realized too
late, this man in hell, he said, I've got five brothers on the
earth. Warn them that they come not to this awful place. Well,
he wasn't concerned about that awful place when he was like
you and me. full of life and vitality, but
he found it out too late. Truth realized too late. Hell
is a place of great suffering, suffering of soul and body, not
just bodily suffering, but soul agony. And then hell is a place
of no return. Our Lord said, between us and
you, there's a great gulf fixed. No one can cross from there here
or from here there. That's hell. Hell is darkness.
Hell is separation from God. Hell is eternal sin, eternal
darkness. Hell is a place of unfulfilled
lust. He that's filthy, let him be
filthy still. He that's unholy, let him be
unholy still. The doctrine of judgment in hell
is based on three cardinal facts. Now I want you to get this. I
want you to listen very closely to me. The doctrine of hell,
the doctrine of eternal punishment is based on three cardinal truths. If these three things are not
true, there's no defense for eternal punishment, eternal condemnation. There's no defense for preaching
it. There's no reason for preaching if these things are not true,
but they are true. And hell is based on these three facts. Number
one, God is holy. God is just. God is righteous. He said, the soul that sinneth,
it shall die. He said, sin, when it's finished,
bringeth forth death. He says, the wages of sin is
death. He said, I will by no means clear
the guilty. God has given a law which must
be honored. God Almighty has set forth a
righteous judgment that must be satisfied. And his righteousness
and his holiness and his justice is more important than any individual
or any groups of individual for his character is the foundation
of his throne. God is and shall be, always shall
be, holy. Who shall approach unto his presence?
He that hath clean hands and a pure heart. Now the way our
hands are cleansed and our hearts are purified is not in our own
merit but in Christ. And outside of Christ, God got
to deal with us in justice and righteousness. We don't want
justice. We want, like the public in the temple, mercy. But hell
and eternal punishment is based on this foundation. God will
punish sin because God must punish sin because God is holy. All right? The second thing is
this. Sin is a voluntary act. That's right. Sin is a voluntary
act. This is condemnation. This is
condemnation, that light is coming to this world and men love darkness
rather than light. It's voluntary. No man's forced
to do evil. They hated me, Christ said, without
a cause. The Scripture says in James 1,
13 and 14, let no man say, I am tempted of God. Every man is
tempted when he's drawn away and enticed by his own lust. Lust bringeth forth sin, sin
bringeth forth death, death bringeth forth hell. Sin is a voluntary
act. These three things are the foundation
of eternal condemnation. God's holy. Man is sinful, willingly
sinful, voluntarily sinful. And thirdly, God spared not his
own son. Now you go to Calvary and you'll
see the will of God to save sinners. God so loved the world that He
gave His Son. God sent His Son into the world,
made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them born under
the law. You go to Calvary, you'll see
God's purpose to save. You go to Calvary, you'll see
the love of God for sinners, the love of Christ for sinners,
having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them even
to the end. He said, no man takes my life
from me, I lay it down. I have the power to take it up
and the power to lay it down. If you go to the cross, you'll
see the price paid for redemption, the life of God's Son, the blood
of Jesus Christ. Oh, what a price. Jesus paid
it all, all the debt I owe. Sin left a crimson stain. He
washed it as white as snow. But my friends, also, if you'll
stay at Calvary long enough, you'll learn something else,
that God will punish sin even when it's found on His only begotten,
well-beloved Son. You see that? If God spared not
His own Son, who was not a sinner by nature, who was not a sinner
by choice, who was not a sinner by practice, who knew no sin,
but was a sinner by representation, who was a sinner by imputation,
who was a sinner standing in the stead of another, if God
wouldn't spare Him, will He spare you, me, rebels of this world? Not hardly. All right, last of
all, there's plenty of light on the road to hell. There's
plenty of light. Paul said to King Agrippa, this
wasn't done in a corner. You know about it. You've heard
about it. You've taken the name of salvation
itself in vain. You've struck your thumb with
a hammer and cried, Jesus Christ or God Almighty or hell or something
like that. The very words you're saying
are words of life. There's life in Christ. This
wasn't done in a corner. The kingdom of God is no secret
lodge. Creation declares the glory of
God. Your conscience preaches to you. The gospel is preached
unto you. There's a light that lighteth
every man that cometh into the world. But someday that light's
going to go out. Like it did for Jerusalem in
the days of Ezekiel. He cried out to them. He said,
you're just full of foolishness and mirth and sensuality. And
your preachers are crying, peace, peace, and there is no peace.
And you've turned the house of God into a den of thieves and
a playground. You've turned the house of God
into a place of entertainment. You've turned the house of God
into everything but a house of prayer. God has sharpened His
sword. And God has polished His sword.
And He's getting it ready for a great slaughter. And the terrible
dark clouds of God's wrath are gathering against this generation.
It's time to repent. before the lights go out on the
road to hell.