YEA Lesson Library

The Lesson

One very hot August night in Mississippi, a red headed, red faced minister preached a sermon about how awful hell is for unrepentant sinners who have died. He vividly described how condemned sinners could find no relief from the flames of fire as they jumped from one hot coal to another in hell. Adulterers, thieves, wife beaters, child molesters, drug users, shoplifters, and gossips in his congregation became increasingly more restless.
Copious sweat poured from his brow that hot summer’s eve, for there was no air-conditioning in that church building. The preacher became more and more excited and his voice got louder and louder. His passion for those sinners in his audience drove him to draw detailed verbal images of an ever-burning hell fire.

As his sermon built to a climax he said, “Let’s lift the lid off of Hell, and see what Joe the drunkard, Two Gun Willie, Priscilla, the naughty lady some of you men have visited, and all of those other sinners are doing.” As he lifted the “lid off of hell,” he screamed at the top of his voice because of the suffering he supposedly saw. Doubtless, this had a powerful impact on those in that hot church building. But was this fact or fiction?

This is a true story. And it is the way many people envision hell to be. But is it what your Bible teaches? Will the God of the greatest mercy torture and torment sinners in hell fire for all eternity? What is the punishment for unrepentant sinners? If you die without repenting of your sins, are you doomed to eternal punishment in an ever burning hell fire? Is there a real hell fire? Is there justice with God? Is our Lord a merciful God? You owe it to yourself to know the truth of these matters.

“Hell” in theological usage is a place of punishment after death. Although there exists a bewilder- ing array of doctrines on hell, there are some broadly accepted elements. Hell is generally conceived as a place beneath the surface of the earth, for example. It is a place where the wicked are tormented by fire, suffering excruciating pain – both the pain of loss and pain of the senses. Somehow the fire causes pain but does not consume. It torments, but the usual relief caused by the destruction of nerves and tissue, passing out, or numbness, is denied the sufferer. How long does this go on? Since man is believed to have an immortal soul, his torment continues time without end, unremitting, for all eternity.

There are four words used in the Bible which are translated “Hell.” Those words are Gehenna, hades, sheol and tartaros. Gehenna was a specific location on the earth that is well known to all Jews. Psalm 55:15 tells us that the direction to hell is down. It is a deep place (Job 11:8), it is a place from which one can be delivered (Proverbs 23:14), it is a place one can dig into (Amos 9:2), Jonah even considers the belly of the whale to be a “hell” of sorts (Jonah 2:2).

In the broadest terms, sheol simply means “the abode of the dead.” Since most of the dead are buried, then hell, in the sense of sheol or hades, is well translated by the English word “grave.”

The Greek word tartaros is the name of a subterranean region, doleful and dark, regarded by the ancient Greeks as the abode of the wicked dead, where they suffer punishment for their evil deeds.”

Many teach that Jesus suffered the torture of flames in hell fire for three days and nights after He was crucified. They use Acts 2:31 to support their belief. “He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that His soul was not left in hell (hades), neither His flesh did see corruption.” They read more into this Scripture than it says. It just says that Jesus was not left in the grave.” (For a complete explanation of each of these Scriptures and this subject call 1-888-BIBLE 44 for Ronald Dart’s free booklet “Is There Really a Hell Fire?” Excerpts from this booklet are included in this lesson.)

Not one New Testament reference has anything at all to say in support of the traditional doctrines of hell fire. This booklet will show you that eternal punishment in hell fire is likely derived, not from the Scriptures, not from the teachings of Jesus, but from Jewish traditions!

But the observant reader will notice that there is a Bible reference to a lake of fire. Could this be the kind of “hell” of which Jesus spoke? Absolutely! For indeed there is to come a time when a great sea of fire, such as lava, or molten rock, becomes the ultimate destruction of the wicked. But what happens to a human being when you cast him into a lake of molten fire? Obviously, he is incinerated. There is not one suggestion of even a lingering death, much less eternal punishing.

Well then, is there really a hell fire after all? Absolutely! At the very end of history, when every man has heard the Gospel and every man has had a chance to be saved, then everyone who “was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15).

There is justice with God! There is also virtually limitless mercy. To those who repent; to those who turn from their sins, receive Jesus Christ as personal Savior; as their Lord, who rules in their lives – as their ever-present High Priest, and their soon- coming KING, there is salvation! That means living forever – in the Kingdom of God – not being destroyed by a veritable sea of flames, which will render the wicked as ashes under the feet of the righteous (Malachi 4:1).