John Bevere - Hell Is for Real
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Welcome to session two. These next two sessions will be really tough. In fact, I’ve done a lot of praying and thinking about it, and I just hope I can get through them without crying. I hope that you hear the heart of God in how I’m sharing these next two sessions. I’ve struggled with this message, especially when I wrote the story of Alphabelle. I had preached all day Sunday, doing three or four services. I was on the East Coast, flying back to Colorado, and while on the plane, I wrote about them going to the deserted land of Loan, which is a type of hell. It shook me up so much that when I got home at midnight, I literally couldn’t go to sleep. Usually, after preaching all day and traveling, I hit the pillow and I’m asleep within 15 seconds. Instead, I laid there for hours, horrified by the fact that there are people who will spend eternity in a place much worse than the land of Loan. According to Jesus, it’s not the minority that are going there; it’s the majority.
I want to show you this: these are the words of Jesus. He says, «Go in through the narrow gate, because the gate to hell is wide and the road that leads to it is easy, and there are many.» The Greek word for «many» literally means «majority» or «mostly.» There are many who travel it, but the gate to life is narrow, and the way that leads to it is hard, and there are few people who find it. While I was lying in bed, unable to sleep, exhausted but unable to rest, I thought about the time I was in South Africa, preaching in a prison. They had asked me to preach in a maximum-security prison where everyone was serving life sentences. I remember walking into that place and seeing the utter hopelessness and the faces of those men. I can’t even describe their hopelessness, which was palpable. There were a few who were saved, and that was a different story, but those men knew they would never get out.
I remember going to where they slept—there were condoms hanging on the wall, bunk beds that were barely a couple of feet apart. I thought, «These men will never get out of here,» and I imagined them thinking, «One day, I’ll die and get out of here.» But people can’t think that in hell; it’s eternal, it’s everlasting. Jesus discussed hell frequently, and he didn’t see it as a lack of compassion; in fact, he mentioned it more than heaven. I think of James C. Ryle, one of the great pastors in England, who said, «Call it bad taste if you like to speak of hell; call it love to make things pleasant and speak smoothly, soothing men with a constant lullaby of peace. From such notions of love may I ever be delivered. My notion of love is to warn men plainly of danger and to declare all the counsel of God. If I never spoke of hell, I should think I had kept back something that was profitable and should be viewed as an accomplice of the devil.»
Hell is a real place; it’s not figurative. There are several names given to hell in the Bible: one is Sheol, an Old Testament name; another more New Testament name is Hades, along with the grave, Gehenna, and the Lake of Fire. I want to read to you an account Jesus tells us about, and I want to read the whole thing slowly. Jesus, in the Gospel of Luke, says there was a certain rich man, clothed in purple and fine linen, who fared sumptuously every day. Now stop there. Jesus never tells a parable by saying, «There is a certain person.» We see here this is not a parable; it’s an actual story, and I will prove it to you in the next verses.
But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, laid at the wealthy man’s gate. We have a beggar, full of sores, laid at a man’s gate who is wealthy. This rich man was clothed in purple; if you wore purple clothing back then, you were extremely wealthy. Jesus wasn’t saying that having money is the problem; after all, he ministered to the wealthiest guy in the entire community named Zacchaeus and even said, «I’m going to your house for dinner.» The problem wasn’t that the man was wealthy; it was that the beggar was laid at his gate every day, and he completely ignored him.
Lazarus desired to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table; moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores. So it happened that the beggar died and was carried by angels to Abraham’s bosom. In nearly all accounts of believers who have passed away, their loved ones say angels come to escort them. One of my dear friends had her mother pass away; she was in Florida lying in bed, and her mom was in really bad shape. Suddenly, she glanced at the wall and said, «Look at those two men.» My friend said, «Mom, what men?» Her mom replied, «Those beautiful men coming right towards us.» And immediately, she was gone.
I heard another minister’s son share how, when his dad died, highly decorated angels appeared to him in the room. This is what happens with the beggar: he is carried by angels into Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. Now, you have to remember that this rich man was a Jewish man. According to Jewish tradition, giving a person a formal burial is a way of honoring them. In other words, you lived an honorable life, and we are giving you an honorable discharge from this earth. The rich man gets the honorable burial; Lazarus gets nothing.
Keep reading. Being in torments, now this is the rich man, notice the word «torments"—not just torment, but torments; other translations say great pain, agony, or anguish. Think about this: in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. The bosom of Abraham was a holding place for the Old Testament saints who would go there waiting for Jesus to come as the spotless lamb for them. Do you remember when Jesus was raised from the dead? Remember how people came up out of their graves, walking around and appearing to folks? That’s because he hadn’t yet gone to the Father; he hadn’t yet put his blood on the mercy seat. So they had no place to go—they just hung out for a few days until he put the blood on the mercy seat.
Then he cried out, «Father Abraham.» We know this is a Jewish man because he says, «Father Abraham.» If he were a Philistine or someone from another nation, he wouldn’t have said this. «Have mercy on me,» he pleaded, «and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water to cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.» There’s a lot here. Remember, I said people are very real in hell. Jesus made a statement saying both body and soul are destroyed in hell. People are very much human beings in hell; they still have reasoning faculties, emotions, wills, and physical features. You can see he’s talking about his finger and tongue; they still have their senses. This man can see Father Abraham and hear him back. He feels the pain, and he literally wants something to cool his tongue.
A friend of mine who spent 20 to 23 minutes in hell said that Jesus took him there. He’s a businessman from California who wrote a book about it. It’s a good book; I could only read two chapters before I completely broke down, saying, «I’ve had enough.» He said the first thing he noticed, aside from the horror and terror, was his thirst. He wanted something to drink, but there was no relief. He said the air was so thin that it was like there was no air in hell. Can you imagine? He said that he was breathing very heavily because it was so hot, and the stench was horrid. But Abraham said, «Son, remember that in your lifetime, you received good things, and Lazarus evil things. But now he is comforted, and you are tormented.»
You see, we’ve seen «tormented» three times now. Keep going. «Besides all this,» he said, «between us and you, there is a great gulf fixed.» In other words, God created this gulf, and I’ll explain that in a minute, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there to us. Continuing, then he said, «I beg you, therefore, Father, that you would send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.» Now I want to stop right there. I want you to notice that this man’s nature hasn’t changed; he asks Abraham to send Lazarus to dip his finger in water to cool his tongue, right? He sees Lazarus as a servant. He is asking Abraham to send Lazarus to his family. This is something that people don’t understand: the darkness in people’s lives, when they do not have the saving grace of Jesus Christ, continues right into hell. If you’re an addict, you will absolutely be a full-on addict in hell, but there is no relief.
See, an addict on earth gets relief with drugs; a drunk gets relief with another drink. But an addict gets no relief in hell, and yet your senses are heightened, and you go to the nth degree of that addiction. That is one of the torments. This man’s nature hasn’t changed; he’s pleading for mercy. It seems that it never really settles in for these people that they’re never going to get out. It’s as though they are hoping for a way of escape, and if you look at this: Abraham reminds him of his life. This guy asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his father’s house. There is remembrance in hell, and I think that is one of the greatest torments.
I think people will remember when somebody shared the Gospel with them. They will remember when eternity cried out in their hearts and said, «Is there a God?» but they refused to ask because they didn’t want to serve God if there was one. Are you following me? Abraham said to him, «They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.» He said, «No, Father Abraham, but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.» Continuing, but Abraham said, «If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rises from the dead.»
A very powerful truth is communicated here by Abraham, and that is this: it’s the word of God that instills faith in our hearts. Supernatural experiences help, but they are not what instills faith in people’s hearts. Abraham points him back to the Word. Have you ever heard the statement «misery loves company»? Not so in hell.
Why would this man ask Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers? You would think if there was companionship in hell, he would want his brothers to be there too. But there’s no companionship in hell. All the people I’ve talked to who have been there said it’s utter loneliness. Lisa and I were sitting in the living room of a pastor of a great church years ago. We knew him; he’s a good man. He never shared this story with us until one night when we sat in his living room. He said, «John and Lisa, you know my mom and dad raised me in the church, but I went to church without having a real relationship with Jesus. One day, my brother and I were playing during the rainy season and fell into a very deep construction ditch. My brother knew how to swim; I couldn’t. My brother got himself out and ran for help, and I had been dead for 30 minutes.» He said when he left his body, he went down at a rapid rate.
He described how everyone he knows that has been to hell shares their stories. The acceleration rate just kept getting faster and faster. The darkness grew darker and darker. He said, «If I had done this with my hand, I wouldn’t have seen it; it felt like I was wearing the darkness.» He noted that the greater he fell into that darkness, the greater his fear became until he thought the fear couldn’t get any worse. Then he started hearing screams—screams that were eerie but then there were screams that caused your blood to freeze in your veins. That was the type of scream he was hearing.
He said he came to the entrance of a place where a being with scales grabbed him and started pulling him in. A voice spoke, saying, «Let him go.» The being responded, «No, he’s mine,» and the voice replied, «Let him go; he’s mine.» He said he saw himself outside of his body watching the paramedics work on him. When he suddenly entered his body and picked up the doctor’s finger, he said, «John, it’s a real place.» There is a real hell to shun and a real heaven to gain. Can you say amen?
Now, this is only the temporary holding place. You have to understand that this is not the permanent hell. The Bible says this in Revelation chapter 20: «Then I saw a great white throne.» The great white throne in the Bible always refers to the judgment of the unbeliever, the person who has refused to give their life to Jesus Christ. «Then I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and the Book of Life was opened. The dead were judged by what they had done, which was written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it; death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. Each person was judged by what he had done, recorded in the books. Death and Hades were thrown into the Lake of Fire.»
This Lake of Fire is the second death. The second death is the permanent, everlasting Lake of Fire. I have a friend; there are four generations of ministers in his family. Their great-great-grandmother lived in Greece and was raised in a home that worshiped idols. She had a vision of Calvary in her attic because she was searching for the real God. In her attic, before she saw Calvary, she saw an ocean of people screaming in torment and cursing God. She said a hand started pushing her into that great chasm and she heard a voice saying, «This is where you belong.»
All of a sudden, she heard this beautiful voice, and she saw Jesus on the cross with His blood dripping down, and he said, «But I did this for you.» She got saved and was gloriously delivered from her own family, who sought to kill her after she became a Christian. It’s in the book.
The second death is very serious. Some people erroneously teach that someday it will end, but I have news for you: it will never end. Revelation 20:10 says this: «They will be tormented day and night forever and ever.» Look at the next one, Matthew 25: «And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.» Remember, God is from everlasting to everlasting. Jesus himself calls it everlasting punishment. Then Mark 9:48, Jesus said, «There the worms that eat them never die, and the fire that burns them is never put out.» If worms never die, that means they have some kind of flesh to eat.
This is what someone told me when she had been to hell. She looked at me and said, «John, I had to sleep with my lights on.» Now, this was a believer. She said Jesus took her there to show her hell. She said, «I had to sleep with my lights on for two months after that experience.» She said what was horrifying was that people were literally like their flesh was being burned, and it would almost regrow back on, and the worms kept eating them. They were in pits; it’s a very real place.
Now here’s the thing: you have to keep in mind that God didn’t create hell for mankind. This is what has to be communicated: what I just read to you, the Lake of Fire and Hell Hades, was not created for mankind. Look what Jesus said: «Go away from me; you will be punished. Go into the fire that burns forever.» That was prepared for the devil and his angels. Hell was prepared for the devil; the Lake of Fire was prepared for the devil. Why? Because he started as the anointed cherub, and iniquity was found in him. There was no tempter—he rebelled against God without any external pressure.
So God created this for him and his fallen angels. The Bible mentions that a third of the angels fell. That’s what hell was created for. However, when God created man and put him on earth, the serpent deceived Eve, and Adam disobeyed God, turning themselves over to the hands of a merciless ruler named Lucifer. Now Lucifer, because God gave the earth to man, now has ownership because man belonged to God. But when man disobeyed God, he gave himself over to Lucifer. That’s why he’s called the god of this world; that’s why he is the prince of darkness.
Jesus came to fix this: God gave the earth to man and said, «I can’t come into the earth as God and deliver them; otherwise, I’m breaking my word.» But God can’t break His word. You understand, I know I’m putting that in human terms, but that’s the deal. So God says, «I’ve got a plan. I’m going to get a man who’s 100% God and 100% man, who will come and redeem mankind.» Are you following me? That is why Jesus said to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every single living being.
Some may say, «Wait a minute, what about those who’ve never heard the Gospel?» I can tell you that I go to foreign nations and you cannot believe the number of visions people are having of Jesus, especially in the Middle East and Malaysia, in some Muslim nations, because they are crying out, saying, «Who’s the real God?» and God is manifesting Himself to them. What is known of God has been placed in them, so they are without excuse, the Bible says. That’s just an excuse to avoid giving your life to Jesus.
That knowledge has been placed in every human being; eternity has been set in their hearts. Some may be scared—can I show you a scripture that I hardly ever hear preached? Look at Jude 22-23: «And on some have compassion, making a distinction; but on others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire.» Lisa and I were at dinner one night with a very famous rock and roll artist and his wife. This man got saved in 1992 and became one of the biggest rock stars in the world in the 70s and early 80s. I remember having a three-hour dinner with them, and he looked at me and said, «You know, John, it wasn’t the love of God that saved me. Now don’t get me wrong; since I’ve become a Christian, I love God, I love Jesus very much. But it wasn’t the love of God that saved me; it was the fear of God. I came home from a show and lay on my bed, and all of a sudden, I knew I was on my way to hell forever.» He said, «I started searching, and that’s how I got saved.»
Remember what I told you about the drugs: they put a healthy fear in me. There is a healthy fear, and could it be that this is why Jesus preached on hell? He wanted that healthy fear in people. Yes, he didn’t want them to be ignorant. One of the most famous sermons in the history of our nation is Jonathan Edwards' sermon, «Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.» He preached this message on July 8, 1741, in Enfield, Connecticut. He just read his message and when he reached this line, «Oh sinner, consider the fearful danger you are in,» because he had just described hell beautifully, people started screaming and crying out to God for repentance. He never even finished his message; they started copying it and sending it everywhere. The sermon is said to be one of the root causes of the First Great Awakening in America.
If you look at God, He understands that there is a healthy fear, and so He allows it to go on throughout eternity. I’m going to read something to you that’s going to shock you. Look at Isaiah 66: «For my new heavens and earth,"—now I want you to understand God speaks about the new heavens and earth, okay? When He purges the earth with fire, He will literally move the city of God to earth. There will be people with resurrected bodies like Jesus, along with natural bodies. That’s in the book—the details are there.
God’s original plan will not fail because of Adam and Eve. He created Adam and Eve to live forever. I believe there will be people who will live forever like Adam and Eve would have, but we will have glorified bodies. Our bodies will be like Jesus'. How will the two interact? It’s very simple; think about how Jesus interacted with the disciples. He ate with them three times, but he would also vanish and float in the air. He could interact with them, right?
God is talking about his new heavens and earth here, where humanity will come and worship Him from week to week, while people from natural bodies will come and see the dead bodies of those who have rebelled against Him. Keep reading: «For the worm that devours them will never die, and the fire that burns them will never go out. All who pass by will witness them with horror.»
Could it be the wisdom of God? You know, Lucifer sinned without a tempter. God says, «In my mercy, I’m going to keep this as a healthy fear for all these natural people living on the earth. That way, when they see the consequences of rebellion against God, it will deter them from rebelling.»
If we would start preaching on this more, I think we would have a more serious and purpose-driven church. I’m looking at you right now, and you may be watching this, sitting there fearful and trembling. There is healthy fear and unhealthy fear. Let me tell you something: God is not mad at you; He’s not angry at you. He loves you enough to give His life for you, so you would never end up in a horrible place called hell.
You might say, «John, how do I escape this condemnation, this day of judgment you’ve been discussing?» By giving your life completely and totally to the lordship and kingship of Jesus Christ. When you give your life to Jesus—and I mean really give your life—say, «Jesus, I am completely yours. My life is yours.» What happens is that what He did on Calvary, the blood He shed, is credited to you. So when that book is opened about your failures, Jesus says, «But Father, my blood covers all of it.» You are forgiven, and you are a child of God who will spend eternity with Him. Not only has He forgiven you, but He has also made provision to give you His very nature, so you don’t have to stay a slave to sin any longer.
If you say, «John, I’ve never given my life to the lordship of Jesus,» I want to pray with you right now. Bow your heads, and say this with me: «God in heaven, forgive me for living my life my way, apart from you, my Creator. But this day, I give my spirit, soul, and body—everything I am and everything I have—to you, Jesus Christ. Thank you, Jesus, for becoming my Lord, Master, and Savior. Thank you for delivering me right now from the powers of darkness and bringing me into your kingdom. I am your child; I now have your nature, and I’ve now been forgiven. I will spend eternity with you. In Jesus' name, amen.»
Let’s thank God for what He has done. See you next session! It’s a very sobering session, I know, but sometimes hard truths are good for us. When you think about it, hell was not created for any human being; it was created according to Matthew 25:41 for the devil and his angels. It is the devil who is taking human beings to hell. Jesus came and died so that no human being would be lost, and no one would have to spend eternity with flames burning off their flesh and worms eating them.
I want you to try to envision the worst case scenario on earth: imagine the deepest, darkest dungeon prison. Think about that for a few minutes. Hell is so much worse than that. So what does that say for our sphere of influence? Don’t take for granted the people who are lost around you. Develop a burning heart in them to hear the good news that their Creator came to save them—not to condemn them and not to send them to this place. Our Creator came to save us from what we sentence ourselves to. Don’t take hell for granted. It’s important for both our lives and for those in our sphere of influence.