What Does the Bible Mean When it Speaks on Hell Part 1

Pastor Mike will be speaking on What Does the Bible Mean When it Speaks on Hell Part 1. He will be reading out of Revelations 20: 11-15.

I want you to understand that what means most to any of us is are we going to spend eternity in heaven with Jesus or are we going to be separated from God in a place called hell? Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church. We welcome you to the Hope Worth Having radio broadcast. We’re excited to be able to minister God’s Word to you today.

We’re going to be in Revelation chapter 20. Whenever we talk about the book of Revelation, immediately people’s minds go to prophecy. Certainly, that’s right, but today we’re going to be talking about what does the Bible mean when it speaks of hell.

Here’s a message that you might not hear a lot, but it is a message that is straightforward on the subject and the topic of hell. If you have your Bible this morning, I want you to join me in the book of Revelation. We’re continuing our study that we began a few weeks ago about five questions about heaven and five questions about hell, but today I want to address this question about hell.

What does the Bible mean when it speaks of hell? According to a 2023 Gallup poll, 59% of Americans believe in hell. Now, we might think that is wonderful, but this is down from 66% in 2019. Perhaps it is because of COVID-19 and the pandemic that took place.

Perhaps all the uncertainty caused people to desire something more hopeful or better. Perhaps it caused them to question the legitimacy of an afterlife in which there are people who are punished for their sins, but the Bible never wavers and it never backs down from the truth. The Bible is straightforward.

The Bible tells us like it really is, and the Bible declares that there is a heaven and that there is a hell, and the Bible teaches us that when we leave this world, we are either going to heaven or we are going to hell. I want you to note what the Scripture says about a particularly unique situation here referred to as the great white throne judgment. This is what John the Revelator wrote under the inspiration of the Spirit of God.

He said in verse 11 of chapter 20 of the book of Revelation, Then I saw a great white throne, and him, referring to Christ, who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heavens fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God. And books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life.

And the dead were judged according to their works by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and Hades, or hell, delivered up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one according to his works. Then death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire.

This is the second death, and anyone not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. The most critical question, the most important question that you must answer today, is my name written in the Lamb’s book of life? Now, I want you to understand that. I’m giving you a lot of information today, and for many of you that love Jesus Christ, you’re going to eat it up, you’re going to love it, you’re going to enjoy it, and you’re going to grow in your faith and your knowledge and understanding what the Scripture teaches about hell.

But friends, this is not an academic exercise. This is not something so that you can be puffed up in knowledge about what the Bible teaches about hell. I want you to understand that what means most to any of us is, are we going to spend eternity in heaven with Jesus, or are we going to be separated from God in a place called hell? And the only way that you can spend eternity with Jesus is that you must put your faith and your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for your salvation.

So as I give you this information, do not forget the importance of making sure that in each of our hearts that we have trusted in Jesus Christ, that we know Him as our Lord, that we have received Him as our Savior, that we know without a shadow of a doubt that when we leave this world, that we’re going to be in the presence of God Almighty in heaven. Now in Revelation chapter 20, you will note the words that I read from the Scriptures, that what was taking place was a big judgment scenario in which God is brought before all the unjust, those who do not believe in God, who do not believe in Christ, the ungodly, and He is judging them. You say, what about us, Pastor Mike? Well, friends, our sins for those who love God, for those who believe in Christ, our sins were judged on the cross by Jesus Christ.

That’s why we have communion. That’s why we’re going to take time, and we’re going to remember what Christ did for us, and we’re going to celebrate what Christ did for us. We don’t have to live in fear.

We don’t have to live in guilt. We don’t have to live in the terror of thinking, where am I going to spend eternity, because our sins are under the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. But the Bible teaches us in this text that there will be a resurrection, and there is not only a resurrection of the just, the Bible teaches us in John chapter 5 and 1 Corinthians 15, but there is a resurrection of the unjust, and they must give an account of their life, and that they will be judged according to their works.

Now you say, Pastor, I thought you couldn’t work your way to heaven. Amen. Amen.

You cannot work your way to heaven. It is only through Christ that you come to heaven, for by grace are you saved through faith. That not of works.

It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should what? Boast. You can’t go to heaven and say, man, look at me, God. I was there.

I was at church. Look at me, God. Look what at all that I accomplished for you, and look what I achieved for you.

No, you can’t do that, because it’s all through the grace of God, and God’s people said amen. Let me tell you something, and sometimes there’s a misnomer and a misunderstanding about hell, is those who do not believe in Christ will be cast into hell, but they will be judged according to their works, that there are degrees in hell, and they will be judged according to their works, the evil that they did, and there will be punishment for the evil, just like there will be rewards for the faithful. Some of you, you’re gonna make it into heaven because of all that Christ did, rightly so, all of us, but some of you, you haven’t lifted a finger for Jesus, and you’re not gonna get any rewards in heaven.

Some of you, buddy, you’re okay. Just come to church, sit on the sidelines, complain about this, complain about that, but you’re not interested in getting involved and serving Jesus Christ. You know, friends, as believers, we’re gonna be rewarded for our works.

We’re not saved by works, but we are rewarded. We were created unto good works. You were saved to serve, and God will reward you one day for your faithfulness to him, and your obedience to him, and what you did, and what you sacrificed for him, and Jesus talks about being rewarded a hundred times more for what you gave up for him, but the reverse is true as well, relating to those who do not believe in Christ, that they will be judged according to their works.

I think the Scriptures are clear, and it is repeated several times in this text that we mentioned to you, but I want you to understand at the end of the history, after the resurrections, the unjust will stand before God, and they will be judged. They’ve already been in hell, but now they’re going to the lake of fire, which I’ll help you understand here, and they will be judged. The book of Revelation reminds us there is a tribulation period coming.

We believe with all of our hearts, and we believe it makes the most common sense that the rapture is before the tribulation, and that the tribulation is seven years, and then upon the completion of that seven years, the return of Christ will come, and he will have the battle of Armageddon, where he will destroy the nations of the earth, and the ungodly, and those who will not follow Christ, and refuse to believe in him, and then he will establish a thousand-year reign, often referred to as the Millennial Kingdom, and in this thousand-year reign, Jesus will fulfill all the prophecies that were made by the Old Testament prophets, in that he will sit in the seat of David, he will rule and reign from Jerusalem, and he will rule as a king, as a lion over this entire world, and there will be peace, and there will be justice, and every wrong will be made right. You and I, we look at this world, and we get, as the scripture read earlier, vexed in our souls. We are hurting, and we are groaning, because we want something so much better than what this world can offer us, and we know that mankind is corrupt, and that they will do everything to have power, and authority, and money, and they will do injustice in order to accomplish their demonic agenda, but there’s coming a day, there’s coming a day, when all that will be rectified, and we will stand in the presence of God, think about it, church, and we will be with the Lord, and we will be with our loved ones, and in this thousand-year reign, God will be the boss of this world, and he’ll be the boss of all the details of the government of this world, and my friends, it’ll be incredible, it’ll be beyond what we can imagine, or even conceive in our minds, but let me just say this, at the end of that thousand-year reign, there is another final judgment, and that is the judgment the Bible teaches, and you can read about it in Revelation, chapter 20, that I just read, but other verses in that, Satan is going to be loosed.

During the thousand years, he is bound, but then he is loosed again, and you say, man, why? I get asked this all the time, why is Satan loosed again? Amen? Why is he loosed again? These are good questions, friends, but I want to help you, and I don’t want to get too information overload here, you guys might just walk out of here, and your heads blow up, but let me tell you something, and I can’t explain it all in detail right now, because of time, okay, because I haven’t even, I’m still in my introduction, and I got five points, and I’m getting worried, and I’m thinking, Mike, in my head, get to the point, but I got to explain something to you first, why would Satan be released again? There are people who will be born in the tribulation, and there will be people who are born in the thousand-year reign, that like all other dispensations or time periods, they have to make a decision for Jesus, they have to make a decision for Christ, and Satan will be loosed, and the Bible teaches us he’ll lead many astray again. You say, I thought there was gonna be righteousness and peace, yes, in decision-making, and how things are governed, and how God controls and guides everything, but you still have a free will, and you still have a heart that has to make a choice, and you still have to respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and there’s some, as you even see today, they conform on the outside, but in their heart, they are far from God. They do not believe in Jesus, they do not trust in Christ, and what’s so amazing, and this is what I try to explain, and this is why I don’t want parents to get too discouraged about raising your children, is that, think about this, that Jesus being the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, sitting on the throne of David, ruling the world with peace and justice, and everything being so beautiful and wonderful, and yet the Bible teaches there’ll still be some who will not believe.

You can have the best of circumstances and still not follow Jesus, and that’s why parents, you just do a good job, you do what God tells you to do, and then it’s up to the kids to make a decision, amen? That’s your fault, don’t be walking around with guilt, you did everything right. Were you perfect? No, welcome to humanity, okay? Wait till your kids are parents, amen? All right, and they’re gonna be like, wow, mom and dad weren’t so bad after all, but here’s what I’m trying to tell you, is that people have to make a decision for Christ, and so we come to verse 11 of Revelation, and now it’s the end of the millennial kingdom, and now God has brought all the unjust before him at the great wine-thrown judgment, and they are now being dealt with and held accountable for their evil deeds, and the Bible tells us, I want you to look at verse 13 of chapter 20, that the sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and Hades, in the King James it says, hell, delivered up the dead. That ought to spark a lot of questions in your mind, but they delivered up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one according to his words, so what does the Bible mean when it speaks of hell? So I want us to look at five words today that help us to understand what the Bible means when it talks about hell, so if you’re taking notes, number one is the word Sheol, which is a Hebrew word, and it is describing the fate of the dead, it is a word in the Old Testament, we see it in Isaiah chapter 14 and verse 15, when God was judging Lucifer, Lucifer was a beautiful angel in heaven, Lucifer was the angelic choir leader of heaven and led all the angels in glory and praise to God Almighty, but Lucifer decided he wanted to be God, and Lucifer decided that he wanted to be in charge, and Lucifer thought it was all about him, and the Bible says that he lifted up himself in his heart, and God casted him out of heaven.

We know him now today as Satan and the fallen angels as demons. People say, Pastor, do you believe in UFOs? Do you believe in these aliens? Now friends, I’m not a guy who’s so much into aliens and UFOs, but I do believe there are demonic fallen angels that crisscross this world, and they present themselves in different ways of deception to try to lead not only the people of God astray, but to lead the world astray and to follow the ways of Satan, but do I believe there’s other living beings on other planets? No, and the biggest reason is, is what I understand in the gospel, is that Jesus Christ died on the cross for sinners, and I believe those sinners were on planet earth, and that if there are other spirits that are out there from the fallen world of the beginning of creation, that they are out there to mislead scientists, and to mislead astronomers, and to mislead explorers, and those who might want to think that somehow there’s another dimension, and there is another world of living people. No, friends, Jesus died on the cross.

He died for sinners on this earth, and do you think God somehow created another planet? I mean, it gets really wacky when you start thinking about this. So who are these UFOs? Who are they? They’re demonic spirits. I’m not saying they aren’t true.

I mean, I see some of these videos floating out, and I see all this, but here’s what I want you to know, that Satan and a third of the angels were cast out of heaven, and Isaiah 14 verse 15 says, in response to this, this is God’s thunderous word, yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, meaning the fate of the dead, to the lowest depths of the pit. Jesus taught us that hell was created for Satan and his demons. Sheol is referred to in the Bible as a place for the dead, and we see in Psalm 6 verse 5, for in death there is no remembrance of you, as the psalmist is expressing his sorrow, and he is expressing his frustration with the advancement of evil in the world.

He says in this psalm, he is lamenting in death there is no remembrance of God. In the grave, it is the Hebrew word Sheol, who will give you thanks again. We see over and over again in the Bible the reference to Sheol, and sometimes it has various meanings, but you might look at it like this.

First of all, that when we think of Sheol in the Old Testament, it is referring to the grave. It is referring to the grave. Often it is translated hell in the Old Testament, but it is simply referring to the grave.

There are other times in context that Sheol is referring to the spirit world. It is referring to the spirit world, and then finally, as we understand Sheol as it refers to the spirit world, it always is applying to those who are unrighteous, who do not believe in God, who do not follow God, and so when you see in the Bible the word hell, certainly in the Old Testament it’s going to be Sheol, and it is referring to the unrighteous, those who are in a place where the unrighteous are held until they are finally brought forth. Remember in Revelation, the Bible says that death and Hades gave them up, meaning there was a place that the unbelievers go.

We’ll talk more about that here in just a few minutes, and that’s what we’re talking about in Sheol. I want you to see in Proverbs chapter 23. Take your Bible and go back to Proverbs.

Don’t lose Revelation, but I want you to go with me to Proverbs 23. Now whenever you read the book of Proverbs, don’t throw stones at me, don’t throw rotten tomatoes at me. I need to teach you something, church.

Some of you are gonna be mad at me, but the book of Proverbs is not a book of promises. It’s not a book of promises. It’s a book of truth and general observations, and the reason you need to understand that is that some of you quote to me the book of Proverbs as if it was a promise to you, and it’s not.

You’re misunderstanding this book, that in general this is what he is teaching us to be true, and when we come to chapter 23, he is addressing in verse 13 and 14 the issue of parenting. There are three things people don’t want you to talk to them about. Number one is their marriage, number two is their finances, and number three is their parenting.

You want to get people stirred up? Just start talking about those things. That’ll get them all fired up, but here the Bible gives you a general observation about raising children. Listen, do not withhold correction from a child, for if you beat him with a rod, he will not die.

Sometimes you hear people say, well, that kid needs a spanking. Now don’t turn me in. All my kids are raised, okay, and in our house we had a little paddle called Mr. Move-It, okay.

Mr. Move-It was highly effective until about the age eight, and then they started running faster than me, but anyways, he says in verse 14, you shall beat him with a rod and deliver his soul from hell. It’s the Hebrew word sheol. Now here he is talking about the unrighteous, and he’s saying generally when children are corrected and they are disciplined, they’re going to turn out to be good people who love God and follow God, but is that a promise? No, because we know that’s not always true, but what he is telling us, please parents, correct your children, please discipline your children, and he does tell you to use a rod.

It was never a firm rod. It was a flexible rod, but it was a rod that left a sting. It’s kind of like grandma used to say, how many of you remember had grandma or mom go out there and say, go out there and get that switch in the backyard, and buddy, right on the back of the gluteus maxus muscle where it stings the most, but anyways, what I want you to know is sheol is the place where the unrighteous are held until one day that they will be given up for that final great white throne judgment.

The second word is the word Hades. Hades is a Greek word. It is in the New Testament.

In the Old Testament, the Bible was written in Hebrew. There’s a few passages in Daniel that are written in Aramaic, but in general, the Old Testament is written in Hebrew. In the New Testament, it is written in Greek, but in the Greek, the word Hades is also the place of the unseen or the place of the dead.

Jesus said in Revelation chapter 1 and verse 18, I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of hell or the keys of Hades and of death.

He is saying that when you have the keys, you have the authority. I have the authority of Hades or the place of the unseen and of death. That is what Jesus is saying.

Hades is the place where the dead are waiting for judgment. It is a parallel word to sheol in the Old Testament. Those who do not believe in God, that they are going to a place that is often translated in today’s translations as hell.

Some of the newer translations use the word Hades. It is the place where the unrighteous go to wait for judgment. Revelation 6 verse 8 in describing the tribulation period, John the Revelator said, and I looked and behold, a pale horse and his name that sat on him was death and hell or Hades followed with him.

And power was given unto them over a fourth part of the earth to kill with sword and with hunger and with death and with the beasts of the earth. And so we think about that, a fourth. There’s seven billion people today, over seven billion.

We’ll quickly be at eight. But let’s just take that out and extrapolate that. That would be over two billion people.

Two billion people are destroyed. Death and Hades followed this pale horse. And it is speaking metaphorically about how God is going to bring death during the tribulation and there’s going to be just a rise in the number of people who are dying.

There are times I think maybe we may already be in the tribulation. Before COVID, I only did about seven to eight funerals a year. Now I do sometimes up to 22 funerals a year.

Death is on the rise. We can all speculate and we can contemplate what might be the cause of it. But my point is that one day it’s gonna go even higher.

That death will be so prevalent in the world. And the Bible says that’s the way it’ll be in the tribulation. Now when we think of Hades as we mentioned to you, it is a comparative word or parallel word of Sheol.

Now I want you to take your Bible and go to the Gospel of Luke. Join me. Grab your Bible.

This is a Bible believing church. And I know some of you have your devices. I’m old-fashioned.

I still like to grab my Bible. But whether you’re using a device or you’re using the old-fashioned Bible, get to Luke chapter 16. Luke chapter 16, Jesus describes or tells a story about a rich man and a poor beggar named Lazarus and how this rich man had everything in the world and this beggar had nothing in the world.

It is a picture of the contrast of their life and then how the rich man ended up being cast into hell or as we’ll see the Greek word Hades. And the beggar was in Abraham’s bosom which again was a holding place for the righteous waiting for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. So I’m gonna pick up in verse 22 just because of time and it says, So it was that the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom.

The rich man also died and he was buried. But look in verse 23 where he goes and being in torment, the new King James says in Hades, the King James says hell. He lifted up his eyes and he saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom.

The Bible reminds us because of our stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and revelation of the judgment of God who will repay each person according to his deeds. That’s a pretty powerful set of verses there and that’s why we understand that hell is real and it’s not something made up. It’s in the Bible.

We believe the Word of God. It’s not mythical, it’s not even metaphorical, but rather it’s a real place. And so I hope that the terror of the Lord and the justice of God and the holiness of God awakens your heart to believe in Him and trust Him as your Savior.

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This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.