Nuria is Baptized!
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“Eternally Thankful”
Preached by Mike Underhill, 11/18/2012
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• We are all excited with Thanksgiving coming! Back in the day, the Pilgrims were helped by the Native Americans so that they could survive here in America. As a result of their gratitude, they served a meal to the Native Americans to show their thankfulness.
• As disciples, we have a lot to be thankful for! Consider all the things that God has given us, and if we were to lose it all, how detrimental it would be!
• 1 Corinthians 6:20 – we were bought at a price to be pulled out from a fiery lake of burning sulfur (Rev 21)
• Romans 3:23 – we all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory – so here we understand that all people have sinned and need to be bought back at a price
• Romans 6:23 – because the wages of our sin is death – but God’s gift to us is eternal life and salvation from hell!
• Isaiah describes Satan as a radiant star and a beautiful angel! No one knows the sin that caused Satan to be ousted out of Heaven, but we know there is no hidden sin! Scholars believe that the sin of an angel is simply a thought of not serving God!
• Adam and Eve also were punished for not obeying God and became subject to physical death. But God’s plan was to send His Son and redeem us of our inheritance (Luke 1, John 1, Mark 1 – Jesus comes to Earth!)
• Jesus comes to Earth to show us exactly what life on Earth is supposed to look like. And He preaches this Way, and instead of accepting Jesus’s message, they chose to kill him! Only a few listened to Him and followed. Jesus went to the cross to pay the price for us so that we would no longer have to be separated from God and we wouldn’t have to pay the price for our own sin.
• Proverbs 9:10 – fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom and the understanding of Hell from an eternal perspective.
• What is the nature of Hell? Luke 16:19-31 – the cost is repentance! It’s a narrow road because repentance is hard! God Almighty had to suffer Himself to save us from the punishment that is in store. In Hell, the human senses will be tortured.
1 – Hell is a prison for lost souls – compact and full of billions. Having the freedom of moving is from God, so even the ability to move will not exist. If you will not be bound on Earth to God’s commands, you will be bound in Hell. So painful that if you wanted to scratch your eye for relief, you could not move your hand.
• Heaven on the other hand is spacious. 1 John 5 – God is light. Heaven is full of light -clear and can see for miles. But in Hell, there is NO light. Daniel 5 – Daniel is thrown into a furnace. But God allowed it to be bright but with no heat, which saved Daniel. In Hell God has created a fire with heat, but has no light. Of all the plagues that occurred in Exodus, but only one plague was considered horrible! That was the plague of darkness for three days!
• 2 Peter 3 – God purges the world with fire – the dross, the sin. And the sin goes to hell. In that sewer (hell) of all sin, there is fire burning that filth! All the filth in this world will be thrown to hell and burn! It will be an incomprehensible stench!
• 1 Corinthians 15 – When we go to Heaven, God gives us a new body. But in hell, you receive a new body – a body that is rotting and fiery! Billions of rotting corpses on fire for eternity. One rotting body alone would make the world uninhabitable, but in hell, it is billions of those bodies. The smell isn’t the torture. Even fire is one of the most hideous tortures even here on Earth. Fire wasn’t created as a punishment here on Earth; it was here for our necessity. But the fire in hell was created to torture and to punish … for the agony of mankind. It preserves forever, so that it will never be destroyed – a state of constant pain. Not limited fire as on Earth – every corner is consumed!
• You would feel your blood boiling and your skull lit and your heart bursting as an ember and your intestines are a burning pulp, and your eyes like balls of fire! It consumes those in it – intense! A perfect fire designed by God for torment and nothing else. The eyes, smell, taste, and sound, the touch, and all internal senses are on fire! The purpose is for justice to finally be served! You not only deal with your own torment, but you hear the torment from all those around you and increases in intensity! To hear the hatred, and to see the surrounding people that assisted in bringing them down, is included in the torment! No camaraderie or a party for sinners – it is strictly increased torment by the people also held responsible.
• Hell is not only filled with worldly souls, but also the demonic angels that are hideous beyond belief – the demons that are condemned to hell for eternity. Those demons mock and they ridicule. They become the consciences of those that are condemned and they continually question why you sinned??
• These demons torment with questioning: Why did you hold on to your sin? Why didn’t you repent? Why didn’t you repent, as opposed to thinking in your pride that you knew the best way? Why, after all the times that you fell, did you not get back up and get open about your sin? They constantly remind you that the time for you to repent has passed!
• God spoke to us, but we wouldn’t crush the pride and anger in our heart, we wouldn’t repent, we wouldn’t purify our hearts! There won’t just be reproach, scorn, and ridicule, but the demons will be filled themselves with disgust at those around them! The demons were here for one thought, but see how many times we had to change and say no and God was so patient, yet we denied all chances!! We are not only subject to this physical torment, but also spiritually we are tormented. Thomas said once that the worst pain of all is loss.
• We don’t perceive all that God has done. But because of His infinite goodness, He loves us in ways that we did not know about. We laugh here, we experience joy, there is always light at the end of the tunnel. All that enjoyment comes from God – and He allows all the righteous and the sinners to experience this, and to have a chance to accept Him. At the end, though, God is either our Savior or we are in total separation forever.
• In Hell, God is gone! There is no more light, laughter, joy, and pleasure is complete gone! The only thing that is left is punishment for sin. Although our hearts yearn to be with God and our souls desire to be united with Him in death, but when we rebel, we are cast away. Imagine a break-up with someone you love? That can be tortuous to people here on Earth! BUT imagine the pain of no God!! How much more painful is that to be separated from Him for eternity! Never to have goodness!
• Also, the pain of conscience – “the worm that gnaws you in hell.” You will see your sin and see how it has led you to hell! All wisdom will be known to those! You will see what you have exchanged heaven for – a relationship, a career, money. But it will too late for the time for repentance – no more hope! That’s the second sting – the sorrows for the committed sin … but it’s a sorrow that is too late!
• What’s the most valuable in life is repentance! In hell, you will see your life before you, the opportunity to repent, and your refusal! They see that they have no excuse left! And of all the tears they may shed to flood the depths, it will not equal one tear shed in repentance here on Earth!
• The pain of extension. One pain on Earth will overshadow another pain. But the laws of gravity don’t apply on Earth. All pain adds up and overwhelms you with more torment! And you exist in the center of the most painful beginning of hell. Pain is the greatest and sorrow is the worst!
• The last torment emotionally in hell is eternity. As dreadful of all the pains we have discussed, the worst thought is eternal pain! It drives to insanity! We cannot even comprehend eternity! Imagine all the sin on Earth and multiply it by all the molecules on Earth that exist – and it becomes a mountain that fills the galaxy and every year one small bird comes to take away one grain of sand! It would take eternity for that entire mountain to be removed! And once the bird as FINALLY removed that mountain, eternity has not even begun! There’s a click that ticks in Hell and on one side it says EVER and NEVER. EVER to know your sin, but NEVER to be able to repent. EVER to see the good you could have done, but NEVER to be able to get it done.
• People ask how God could make such a place as Hell? But God paid the price so that we wouldn’t have to go there! But we, instead, have chosen to take the path there!
• Luke 16:25 – God says you must remember your life. In hell you will see what life should have been lived like! Imagine if we could life with that understanding today! Understand every moment that passes, if not lived for God, will be regretted forever! To acknowledge that God paid the price so that we could avoid that punishment.
• You give up worldly dreams and earthly desires in order to save the souls of the people around you! We get the vision of the importance of the necessity to do God’s will, and people will give up their earthly possessions to pay for God’s church to bring God’s dreams to life! If you don’t put God first, you will continually live with the regret of all the work that you could have done for God and should have done!
• People were in San Francisco waiting for a church to be sent! And the church was sent and now there’s an opportunity for all the lost souls in San Francisco to have a chance to be saved! And there are disciples here in San Francisco who have vision to build the most amazing ministries in this church! And when these disciples step out on faith, God bless that faith!
• Our Missions contribution puts interns on staff to increase the work that can be done here in the Church! Because we are the living Lazaruses that are calling to fulfill what those in Hell wish they had the opportunity to do – to repent! What’s the price for one soul to be saved? It’s priceless
• Hebrews 11:13-16 – God prepares a city for those who continue to keep their faith! At Thanksgiving, reflect on how God has saved you from so much! And he brought us here to help us to save those who want to repent and live without regrets!
