Heb 3:14-19 For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end; while it is said, "Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me." For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they should not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? And so we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief. 
	We are in the midst of our consideration of the Biblical Doctrine of Heaven and Hell, following the framework of Pastor Donnelly’s writing and sermons. We have seen, Lord willing, the need to study the doctrine of Hell. Today, let us push on into the Biblical basics of Hell. We will consider what hell is in its plan and purpose of God. 
	In the main, hell is a place of eternal conscious punishment for the guilty. It is not a difficult concept to understand. Mankind has had a sense of hell from the beginning. Almost every religion has its place of torment and punishment. Every culture has a sense of a judgment to come. It is often denied, not because it goes against our human reasoning, as we are created in the image of God, but because we don’t like the idea of eternal damnation. This denial of punishment is much like a child hiding under the sheets of his or her bed. That does not change the truth, however, that hell awaits those who do wrong. 
	This is so basic, that the writer to the Hebrews refers to the idea of judgment as an elementary teaching. Heb 6:1-3 Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instruction about washings, and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we shall do, if God permits. It was something that was considered very basic in the early church, but which has been seemingly lost as our human awareness and man-centeredness has delegated it almost into mythological proportions. We need to re-teach this doctrine, least we lose the very basis for the Gospel, the need for Jesus Christ to be our savior from hell. Our belief in Jesus Christ necessitates our belief in hell as a righteous place of God’s judgment and punishment for unbelievers, the basic premise of this morning’s text.
	This brings us to the question, what is Hell? First, it is a real place in God’s creation. It is not a symbolic statement or a metaphor; it is a real place somewhere within the design of God’s universe. It is not just a descriptive phrase that we use when we are going through very hard and trying times. It is not an emotional aspect of loneliness and anger and frustration which we suffer because of the attitudes and behavior of other people. As we read in the parable spoken by Our Lord as He described the condition of the rich man who had been sent to hell in Luke 16, verses 23, 27+28 "And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away, and Lazarus in his bosom…. "And he said, 'Then I beg you, Father, that you send him to my father's house - for I have five brothers - that he may warn them, lest they also come to this place of torment.' This translation of Christ’s use of the word place is the Greek word from which we get the word topography. Hell is a real place.
	Quoting with regard to this place of hell, The most characteristic name for hell in the New Testament is Gehenna, a word with an interesting history. It referred to the valley of Hinnom, just outside Jerusalem, where the Israelites had burned their children in sacrifice to the Ammonite god Molech…. It was a place of devilment and heart-wrenching grief. By the first century this valley of Hinnom had become a rubbish dump where offal was burned day and night. The people of Jesus’ day associated it with smoke, stench and worms, all that was hideous and foul. This is the horribly vivid term chosen by our Lord as an appropriate picture of the real hell. End quote.
Hell is an actual place created by God. As we read in Rev 4:11, the elders declare “Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou didst create all things, and because of Thy will they existed, and were created." And our Lord Jesus Christ declares that hell has been created for the very specific purpose of punishment for unbelievers as well as the devil and his angels in Matt 25:41, "Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; Hell is a real place that cannot be wished or argued away.
Continuing, then with our question of what is hell, it is a real place, a place of just, terrible, and everlasting punishment. This punishment is the type of punishment that this world will not tolerate, retributive punishment. People can accept remedial punishment, punishment that is designed to make someone a better person. People will tolerate, to a point, preventative punishment, such as punishment of lawbreakers in our prison system to cause others to not violate the laws of society. But retributive punishment, punishment inflicted simply because it is deserved, because it is right that wrong doers should suffer, punishment because God has been offended by the sin of humanity and thus sinners deserve to be eternally punished, that type of punishment is offensive to our senses. This is so offensive and awful to us because it absolutely and utterly scares us. We are afraid of that which we deserve and we figure if we can do away with such an idea of just punishment, maybe God’s heart will turn away from it as well. 
Quoting concerning this punishment, For punishment in hell is retributive. It is not remedial. It does not make anyone better. Purgatory, the idea that humans will be cleansed and improved through their suffering after death, is a myth. The pains of hell are of absolutely no benefit to those who are being punished. Nor is such punishment preventative, except insofar as hearing of it now may turn people from sin to Christ. When God opens the judgment books and proclaims the final destiny of all, the punishment pronounced will be what people hate and fear above all: retributive punishment, imposed because wrong is wrong and God is against it. End quote.
The punishment will be just because it is administered by the just and Holy God. It cannot be otherwise. Rev 19:2 …His judgments are true and righteous; for He has judged the great harlot who was corrupting the earth with her immorality, and He has avenged the blood of His bond-servants on her." No one will be able to complain that the punishment meted out to them in hell is undeserved or unjust. Each one will be facing God and will have to accept that punishment as rightly deserved and fully and absolutely just in its every measure. 
As we read in 2 Peter 2:4-13, For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly thereafter; and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day with their lawless deeds), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties, whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord. But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed, suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong. No one will ever be able to complain that the punishment isn’t fair. It will be painfully obvious to all. Hell is just. 
The punishment in hell is not only just, but it will also be terrible. As we are told in Matt 8:12 and Mark 9:44…in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth…where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. And in Rev 14:10+11, those in hell will …drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. "And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; and they have no rest day and night… This is a terrible description of torment and anguish and punishment justly deserved and justly meted out under the wrath of the Holy and Awesome God of Righteousness. 
	Hell is a real place of retributive and just punishment which will last for eternity. This is not some momentary punishment. It is not a punishment that will decrease over time. It will go on and on and on from eternity to eternity, never ceasing, never for one instant relenting. It will be a constant heaping of deserved punishment upon the guilty in the never satisfied wrath of God. 2 Thess 1:6-9 For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. And these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction… And in Matt 25:41 as we have already seen, "Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; as well as verse 46, And these will go away into eternal punishment. Jude refers to the eternalness of hell in Jude 7 …the punishment of eternal fire and in Jude 13, …for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever. 
	Hell is a real place of punishment that is just, terrible, and eternal. The very reality of hell should cause us to be overwhelmed in the gravity and the depth of our depravity apart from Jesus Christ. There should well up within us inexpressible revulsion that anyone would choose, deliberately choose, to deny the only way of salvation, Jesus Christ. That should cause us to all the more search our hearts as to the manner in which we consider the holiness and the awesomeness of so great a salvation as we have in Jesus Christ. 
	Our final point this morning is that hell is for the devil, his angels and the unsaved. The devil will be cast into hell with all his minions. Scripture is very, very clear on this. Matt 25:41 bears this witness, which we have read several times this morning, as does Rev 20:10 And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. As well as Jude 6, And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day. The demons already recognize this eternal judgment, as we read in Luke 8:31, when they implored Christ …not to command them to depart into the abyss. So hell is for the devil and his angels.
	It is also for the blatantly wicked. Rev 21:8 "But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." As much as we deplore the idea of hell, we do consider it a fit place for the murderers and the abusers of this age. Those men and women who have committed atrocities, we can consciously accept as destined for the fires of eternal torment and anguish. 
	There is another group, however, that will be thrown into the eternal fires of hell. These are those as described by the Apostle Paul in 2 Thess 1:8…those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. With regard to these eternally damned people, they are quote Outwardly upright, decent people, many of them. Good citizens, caring parents, reliable employees, friendly neighbours. But they never trusted Christ as Saviour. They refused to ‘obey the gospel’. End quote. These are the unsaved who will not accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. They are spoken of in Heb 10:29 How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? 
These are those who do not obey God, do not believe on His Only Begotten Son, who distain God’s offered love and choose to try to find another way to heaven. They turn their backs on God and shun Him and His mercy and His Grace and His Love in the wicked deceit of their hearts. These are those who deserve eternal punishment because they deliberately declare that they did not need Jesus Christ, God’s Only Begotten Son. John 3:36, "He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." 
	I pray, with all my heart, that there is no one in this room with such a wicked heart before God. That there is no one in this room who thinks that Jesus Christ is not necessary for salvation from hell. That there is no one in this room who thinks that religion, or good works, or the luck of the draw will keep anyone from hell. There is a hell and it will be filled with all who turn their backs on Jesus Christ. Don’t be one of the lost. Turn to Christ; call out to Him with all your heart. Even if it is out of fear of the eternal torment of hell, let that knowledge cause you to seek God to save you. He will! Just call on Him! 
Believe on Jesus Christ! Know that He will save you from hell! Believe and be saved! That is the heart of the church joined with the heart of God that no one would be lost and that all would be saved through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Nothing else will save you! Not money, not fame, not church attendance, not infant baptism, nothing but the blood of Jesus! Don’t let pride or arrogance or self will cause you to go to hell! Call on Jesus! John 5:24, "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. So be it!
For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end; while it is said, "Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me." For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they should not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? And so we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Ps 89:1-8 I will sing of the lovingkindness of the Lord forever; To all generations I will make known Thy faithfulness with my mouth. For I have said, "Lovingkindness will be built up forever; In the heavens Thou wilt establish Thy faithfulness." "I have made a covenant with My chosen; I have sworn to David My servant, I will establish your seed forever, And build up your throne to all generations. "  Selah. And the heavens will praise Thy wonders, O Lord; Thy faithfulness also in the assembly of the holy ones. For who in the skies is comparable to the Lord? Who among the sons of the mighty is like the Lord, A God greatly feared in the council of the holy ones, And awesome above all those who are around Him? O Lord God of hosts, who is like Thee, O mighty Lord? Thy faithfulness also surrounds Thee. Amen.