This sermon delves into the dangers of idolatry and addiction, drawing parallels between the destructive nature of addiction and how idolatry can lead individuals astray. It emphasizes the importance of addressing the reality of eternity, highlighting the consequences of following false gods and the need to choose to obey God. The sermon stresses the significance of sharing the truth about heaven and hell, even if it may be uncomfortable, as a reflection of God's love and desire for repentance.

I read this poem I think a year or so ago, and I'm just going to do a short version. And it's really about addiction, but I thought of this immediately when I'm talking about idolatry. It says this, I destroy homes, tear families apart, take your children, and that's just the start. I'm more costly than diamonds, more costly than gold. The sorrow I bring is a sight to behold. Just try me once and I might let you go, but try me twice, and I will own your soul. You'll forget your morals and how you were raised. I'll be your conscience. I'll teach you my ways. I'll be your master. You'll be my slave. I'll even go with you when you go to your grave. Now that you have met me, what will you do? Will you try me or not? It's all up to you. I can bring you more misery than words can tell. Come, take my hand. Let me lead you to hell. I'm convinced that we need to get back to the realities of eternity. Because unbelievers, I'm going to talk about obviously the bulk of the sermon. I was actually up at 3 this morning. God woke me up. This whole page I added. And I don't like when He does that because it ruins my flow. But when it's a burden on my heart, you have to let that burden go through the preaching or it will stay. The burdens stay until I release them. And I realize that when it comes to unbelievers, I talked to quite a group yesterday, their idols are leading them to hell. The idolatry is leading them to hell. And people often ask, well, why does God send a person to hell? And I remind them, He doesn't send them. They follow their false gods to hell. They follow their idol to hell. Heaven and hell summed up. You choose what father you want to obey. You choose who you want to be your master. You choose where you want to go and spend eternity. And the thing about this topic, I mean, it's not popular. And if I were to interview most of you, I don't know of anybody in this room, maybe I'm sure there are, who would say, no, I don't believe in that. Do we believe in eternity? Do we believe in eternal darkness and separation from God? But the irony is, I believe it, but I'm not going to tell anyone. That doesn't make a lot of sense. Now I'm not a fan of standing on the corner saying you're all going to hell, turn and burn. I don't know if that's quite, you know, I want to be careful because God moves in many different ways, but we have to be careful too because that's where Bible thumping, hellfire and brimstone comes from, is you're not showing people the love of Christ, and then you can better explain eternity and separation from Christ in hell. If all you're preaching is a mean gospel, that's not necessarily the heart of God. But we have got away from that. It's almost like pastors are hoping people will realize there's a hell by reading their Bible. Let me encourage you to read your Bible so you'll find out yourself when He's given us the command to tell people about it. Charles Peace was condemned to death row in the United States. A pastor mentioned hell as he was walking him down death row. I think it was the electric chair back then. And he mentioned the passage about hell. And this condemned criminal tapped him on the shoulder and said, sir, do you mind me asking a question? Do you believe what you're reading? He said, of course I believe what I'm reading. Then the condemned criminal said, if I believe what you believe, I would crawl on my hands and knees to the four corners of the world across broken glass to warn people of such an eternity. It was hard putting this together this morning because many people come to my mind. It's almost this vision of walking to a cliff and falling over into eternity. And how do you rescue them? You can't just preach at them. You've got to be filled with the Spirit of God so God can dividely right. You love them and you tell them where this path is leading. But once you get the heart of God in you, you have to tell them. The reason we don't preach hell is because we don't have heaven within. Because when you truly are filled with God's Spirit, you want to share the heart of God. And the reason we don't want to talk about hell is because we don't want to offend. We don't want to be, oh, there's that guy again. Now, I don't want everybody to go rushing out of here just condemning and preaching hell. But we have to help people understand, okay, listen, you are living for eternity. Listen, and I've talked to people who wind up with guns to their head and it's a shame. The only reason I haven't done it is because I know that I'm going to end up somewhere. We know, and it's our job to help people point them in the right direction. What about if throughout my day, I talked about a certain subject 13% of the time? You know, that's a lot, right? So one, let's say 13, we'll make it easy because I'm not a numbers guy. I didn't do well in math. 1 10th of everything I talked about, my wife would eventually get sick of it, right? And say, stop talking about that. You talk about that 10% of the time. For every nine conversations, you talk about this. For every nine conversations, you talk about this. Well, Jesus talked about hell and condemnation and judgment 13% of all of his recorded words. 13% is focused on judgment. He said, don't fear him who can kill your body, but fear him who can cast both body and soul in hell. I mean, if we truly believe it, wouldn't we tell people that? Wouldn't you kind of ruffle their feathers a little bit and say, you need to think about where you're spending eternity. That's a very important thing. J.C. Ryle, he died, I believe, in 1900, so 117 years ago. He said, beware of new and strange doctrines. We think we have them now. They had them back then too. Beware of new and strange doctrines about hell and the eternity of punishment. Beware of manufacturing a God of your own. A God who is all love but not holy. A God who has a heaven for everybody, but a hell for none. And that's what we want to present. See, I've got to make the Gospel as appealing as possible. You know, come to Jesus and everything will be great and wonderful, and we want to paint this Picasso, right? Oh, well, who wouldn't choose that? But the real message of the Gospel is Christ died for us. A Savior rescued us from the punishment of God, the wrath of God. And it's a very interesting thing to learn. You look at God being holy and righteous, and a holy, righteous God saying, I can't dwell with sinful people. I'll fix that problem for you. I'll bring my Son into the equation to take the wrath of God, to take that punishment for you. All you have to do is believe and repent and embrace that gift. That's why I don't understand why people are so upset at this topic. But I do understand because the darkness hates the light. You know when you remind somebody, right? If you tell your kids, listen, when we get home, you're cleaning your room. Well, all day, they're going to be, don't go home yet, don't go home yet, don't go home yet, don't go home yet, don't go home yet. You remind them of that. And people say, I don't like that hellfire and brimstone type preaching. And I don't know, don't be surprised here, but I've been labeled that, okay? And it just might be a shocker for some people. But I get those emails and I want to say, you know why you don't like that? Because you're convicted. Let's just be honest, let's be real. Because see, when you're honest and real, you can get to the heart of the problem. And if that convicts you, why? Why does it convict you? Because you're not ready. Of course it convicts. When true spirit-filled Christians hear the glories of heaven and the reality of hell, they say, amen, we need to hear it again and again and be reminded of it. The conviction will show you where your heart's at. And one of the things that you talk about the heart of God is, many of us don't like begging, do we? Pleading, have you ever seen somebody pleading? It's kind of ugly. You know, unless it's for a good reason sometimes, but they're just kind of, you know, pleading. Please, please. And it can be a good thing. Mothers, fathers do this to their sons. Please don't do that. Please don't go out with them. Please, and this pleading. But did you know that God pleads? God will, if you read Scripture, God will plead. Deuteronomy 5.29. Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear me and always keep my commandments. That oh isn't in there just because they have filth and space. The oh is this heart-wrenching, oh God, if you would just hear me. He is God, so he doesn't say that. He just says, oh, oh, if you would just hear me. Just hear me, children. Turn to my commandments. But why does God do that? I don't know. All I know is when God set creation in motion, he set truth in motion. You have to line up with truth. Truth doesn't conform to you. So once he sets this in motion, oh, that you would just turn, turn and do my commandments and fear me. Always walk in my commandments that it might be well with them and with their children. I am not willing that any should perish, but that all come to repentance. That's the heart of God. And I don't have all the answers. I'm pretty sure this is one of them the atheist is going to ask me at the debate. Or a Q and A is going to come up. How can a loving God this? Why couldn't God just program everybody to go to heaven? But it's deep. If you read deep philosophy like Ravi Zacharias and these guys that I rewind their messages four times. Okay, I finally got it. Or I can just name off those guys. Apologetics with PhDs. But they explain very well, much better than I can, that true love has to make a decision. If God, he could create robots. But to truly love someone, you have to show them what love is. So he has to give, the man has to love God. And what's the other side of love? Hate. You can't have love without hate. You can't have good without evil. God created us to worship him. And in that fallen nature, he calls man back to him.