The Absolute Horror of Hell

When I was a boy in high school, I had a job as a sack boy in a grocery store, and part of my job description was to take the boxes that the produce came in, and break them down with a box cutter, flatten them out, and stack them on a dolly, and then wheel them to the back of the store, where a cast iron furnace was. It was my job to throw those boxes into that furnace and burn them up. It was a tough job, because as soon as I would open that heavy iron door, the tremendous heat from that furnace would singe my face.

I would back away, and quickly toss those boxes into those swirling, white-hot flames. That was fifty years ago, and I can still sense the heat of that furnace. It was a memory that'll always stay with me.

In the Book of Malachi, in chapter four, in verse one, we read, For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, And all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble. And the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. The title of my message this evening, friends, is The Absolute Horror of Hell, and in this message, we will explore the dimensions of what a chamber of horrors Hell really is.

Trust me, friend, when I say you don't want to go to Hell. Hell is a terrible place, that once you are shut up in there, you can never get out. Have you ever been in a place against your will, and you wanted out, and you couldn't get out? I was in the hospital a year ago, and I wanted to get out, but the doctors wouldn't release me.

I wanted out so bad, I was just stuck in there. Finally, I got to get out. Some of you who've been sent to prison know what I'm talking about.

You are in a cell, and it is a living hell, and you want out, and you can't get out. I am reminded about Corrie Ten Boom, relating her horrible nightmare of an experience of being sent to a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. She couldn't leave.

The prisoners were stuck in that living hell until they were executed one by one in the gas chamber. Corrie Ten Boom saw both her father and her sister die in that terrible concentration camp. Hell is like that, in the sense that you were sent to a place you don't want to go.

You were sent there against your will, and once you are in there, all you want is to get out, but you can't. The absolute horror of hell is that it is forever, and it's a prison. You are in there forever and ever, in an everlasting place of punishment for sin.

Now, some of you don't believe in a God who would send anybody to hell, but the God of the Bible would. If you die in your sins, your eternal state is fixed. In Revelation we read, He that is unjust, let him be unjust still, and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still.

If you die outside of Christ, friend, you will surely be cast into that region of everlasting damnation called hell. Psalm 917 declares, The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. Well what kind of place is hell? We don't hear much preaching today on hell, because we don't preach against sin, and we don't preach man's duty of repentance either.

But I can assure you, friend, that hell is a chamber of horrors. Hell is full of smoke. In Revelation 9 verses 2 and 3 we read, And he opened the bottomless pit, and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace.

And the sun and air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. When the angel who has the key to the bottomless pit opens the lid on that hell of horror, the black smoke billowing up from that pit darkens the entire sky, my Bible tells us. I used to live in L.A., and there were days called smog alerts where the smog got so bad it turned the sky gray and it blocked out the sun.

But the smoke in hell is 10,000 times worse than that. You get a sense of the terrible wrath of God against sin in the book of Genesis. In chapter 19, when God rained hell out of heaven upon the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, burning them up and reducing them to smoke and ashes, look at this terrible scene, friend, that Abraham beheld, for it's a very picture of hell itself.

And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord, and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the plain. And behold, and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace. That's what it's like in hell, friend.

Hell is full of smoke. Another dimension of the horror of hell is that hell is full of demons. Revelation 9.3 speaks of the lid lifted off hell itself.

And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth, and unto them was given power. That hell is full of demons is a fact, Jesus said. That hell is prepared for the devil and his angels.

In hell, you will have demons brush up against you, and no one can protect you from them as they tear at you and abuse you, and you cannot escape that horror as they fall upon you. Your shrieks and screams will be drowned out by millions of voices of tortured souls screaming all around you. The din, the noise there in hell is deafening.

Another dimension of the horror of hell is that hell is full of darkness. Jesus called hell outer darkness, which makes me think of the pitch black darkness of outer space. It's so dark in hell, you can't see your hand in front of your face.

You will hear voices all around you, but you can't make them out. Imagine being shut up in a haunted house full of evil spirits, and you can hear them, but you can't see them. When I was a teenager, my family moved into a very haunted house.

Our first night there, we were sitting in the living room, and upstairs above us, we heard heavy footsteps hit the floor as it sounded like someone was up there, slowly walking back and forth down the hall. My father tried to laugh it off by saying, spooks, but it was no laughing matter. As we kept hearing someone or something walking up and down the floor above us, I ran up the stairs to see if there was an intruder in the house, but no one was there, at least no one I could see.

But the most terrifying thing that happened in that haunted house was a door beneath the stairwell that suddenly and without warning, a pounding would begin on that door, pounding and pounding and pounding as if someone was trying to get out. One day, when the pounding stopped, I slowly walked over to the door and opened it. Cold air came out upon me, even though it was a hot summer day.

I sure was glad when my family finally moved out of that haunted house full of demons. But in hell, you can't see those demons around you, but you'll sure hear them and feel them, and you can't move out because you're shut up in that chamber of horrors forever, forever. Ever.

The absolute horror of hell cannot be adequately described by mortal man this side of eternity. It's worse than you can ever imagine, friend, and it's your worst nightmare that you can ever wake from. Hell is full of horror.

In Isaiah, we read, The sinners in Zion are afraid. Fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? Don't go to hell, friend.

Repent before it's too late.