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Amazing Facts

No Place to Hide

Joe Crews

01 No Place to Hide

International law demands an equitable trial before an accused can be punished.

Yet a famous judge has been accused of an execution without trial or jury.

I'll be back in a moment with the amazing facts.

Hello, this is Joe Cruz on the amazing facts broadcast, facts which affect you.

1 of the most solemn and most important questions that has ever been asked was an all-solemnity asked by the Apostle Peter.

I read it in 1 Peter 4, verse 17, and this is what he asked, ìWhat shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel?" We ought to do some very serious thinking about this question, friends.

This is not a question for careless speculation, as so many other questions are.

We can't afford to be vague about the answer to this question, Neither can we afford to be evasive about it, either.

It's too awful, it's too terribly important to make any mistake when we give the answer.

The very reputation of God himself is at stake in the answer to this question.

Most people today have the wrong answer to the question that Peter asked, and because this answer is wrong, millions of people living in the world today hate God, who might otherwise love him.

Now, I can't overemphasize the importance of the topic that we are going to be spending a bit of time with today.

Many people are skeptics, agnostics, critics of Christianity, because somewhere they have heard the wrong answer to the question that Peter asked.

To illustrate, let me mention Colonel Robert Ingersoll.

Robert Ingersoll might have been a prince of preachers because he was a brilliant man, instead of the notorious infidel that he was, because he received the wrong answer to this question.

When he was just a little fellow, his father said to him 1 day, Robert, do you know that there are little infants in hell, not over a span and length, who will be in hell, screaming and begging for mercy throughout eternity." Now, Robert thought a little while, and then he said, Well, if God does that, I hate him.

And he grew up hating that way, feeling that hatred for God.

The years went by, and he was lecturing all over the country, airing his views, when 1 day a very close friend of his was converted.

He had a wonderful experience in the Lord Jesus, and the joy and peace that only Heaven can give became his.

And so he wrote a letter to Ingersoll and asked him this question.

He said, Bob, how can you get up before an audience with a lot of intelligent people in it and run down a religion that will do for people what this has done for me?

A few nights passed by and Ingersoll got up before his audience at a great, big auditorium and told about the letter, his friend's experience.

And then he said this, "'Ladies and gentlemen, I'm not running down a religion that will do that for a man.

I'm not preaching against a religion that will lift up downtrodden men, but I am preaching against a religion that some creatures preach." What he meant by that was that he was bitterly opposed, in addition to other things, to the teaching that was being taught in many, many quarters about eternal torment.

The tragedy of this whole thing, friends, is this.

Hell as it is commonly taught today is not a Bible doctrine at all.

The doctrine of eternal suffering is not at all based on this book, the Bible, and it seems a tragedy that Ingersoll didn't understand that.

The Bible does teach the doctrine of hell.

But it has nothing to do with what has been taught by many of the churches down through the years and has been used to frighten people, as it were, into the Kingdom of Heaven.

You say, well, what does the Bible say about hell?

I wish we had time to go into all the different aspects of it, but of course we don't.

We're going to be able to give you only a very brief summary of what the Bible teaches.

First of all, I think we should all realize that the word hell has several meanings in the Bible.

A lot of folk, when they think of hell, think about burning.

Every time The word is mentioned, they get a little mental vision of someplace of burning somewhere.

Well, that's all right, but it doesn't always mean that.

The fact is that the word is sometimes, in fact, the word hell is used 55 times in the scripture, no more or less.

55 times only, and 42 of those times it refers to the grave, G-R-A-V-E.

In the Old Testament the word translated hell is sheol.

Forty-two times out of fifty-five times the word hell, as it appears in our Bible, means a grave.

12 times it is translated from the word gehennah, and means a place of burning.

1 time it is translated from the word Tartarus, and it means a place of darkness.

And so we ought to realize when we are reading through the Bible and the word hell comes along, it may mean 1 of several things.

We should never get the idea when we see the word hell in the Bible that it refers always to a place of burning, because the scriptures show that 43 of the 55 times it's not referring to a place of burning at all, but to something entirely different.

Now today we're going to discuss the place of burning mentioned 12 times in the scripture.

We're going to ask the questions and then turn to the book of God and let the Lord Himself, from the pages of Holy Writ, give the answers.

Or we might put it like this, is hell burning now?

I'm turning to Matthew 13, the first book of the New Testament, and I'm going to begin reading with verse 40.

If you'll listen very carefully, you'll see that God gives the answer here very clearly.

Verse 40, "...as therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world.

The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire.

There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." Now there it is, friends, very, very plain, isn't it?

The Scripture just simply, clearly, plainly and decidedly says that sinners are going to be cast into that furnace of hellfire at the end of the world.

Churches may be wrong as they often are, preachers may be wrong as they often are, but Christ is never wrong, and he says sinners will be cast into the lake of fire or hell fire at the end of the world, not when they die, as is so often taught today.

If the wicked are cast into hell fire at the end of the world, and the end of the world has not yet come, Then how many sinners are in hellfire now, today?

Not a single 1, no, not even the worst person who ever lived, because God says that sinners will be cast into hellfire at the end of the world.

And when you analyze it, it is completely sensible, It adds up.

According to John 12, verse 48, the judgment takes place at the end of the world.

Now, can you imagine God putting a man into hell for punishment before the judgment took place, before the court trial was held?

What would you think of a judge in your city who sent a man to prison for 10 years and then took him out and had a trial to see if he should have been punished or not, or whether he was guilty or not?

But the Bible says that the judgment itself takes place at the end of the world, and God punishes no 1 until after the judgment.

Did you ever stop to think what it would mean if he did?

In fact, let's say, for example, Cain, the first murderer, was lost.

We don't know that he was, but let's say to illustrate that he was lost.

Cain, then, according to the popular teaching, when he died, went to hell for murder.

A man who murders today dies and goes to hell.

But he suffers 6, 000 years less than Cain, who committed the same crime.

And I tell you that such teaching is slander upon the holy name of God.

He never punishes anyone until the case is surveyed, comes to trial in court, and the decision is reached, and then at the end of the world all sinners will be punished together in the fire.

The next question is this, where do the dead go, then?

If they don't go to hell, where do they go?

This is John 5, verses 28 and 29, and once again the Lord Jesus is speaking.

This is what he said, "'Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming, into which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice, and shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." Notice what Jesus teaches here.

He says plainly, too plainly to ever be misunderstood, that the wicked dead are in their graves, just where they are placed at the time they die.

And he teaches that those wicked dead are going to be there until the end of the world, when the voice of God is going to call them forth.

And they are going to hear his voice from the grave, Jesus said, not from heaven or hell, but from the grave.

They'll come forth from the grave and the resurrection of damnation to receive punishment.

02 No Place to Hide

The loudest noise ever made in the world was a volcanic explosion in 1883.

I'll be back in a moment to talk about another fiery blast and no place to hide.

Music Hello, this is Joe Cruz of the Amazing Facts broadcast, Facts Which Affect You.

Today we're going to continue talking about the subject of hell, not a very happy subject I'm sure to talk about, and yet a most important 1 for every 1 of us, we discovered in our last broadcast that hell is really going to be right here on this earth, and that the whole planet is going to be set on fire and that the wicked will be devoured right here upon the face of the earth.

And that brings us to the question of how big and how large hell is.

Well, I'm thankful we don't have to theorize on this.

I've heard some amazing wild guesses and some very rash statements also, but I'm thankful God has given us the answer.

It's found right here in 2 Peter 3, verse 10.

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, into which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.

The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." Now it doesn't say burned, it says burned up.

That little word up denotes completion, and according to this Scripture it is a whole earth on fire.

Why, it will be just as big as the earth, 25, 000 miles around, 8, 000 miles through it, because God is going to set this earth on fire with his great fiery atomic blast.

And the earth will melt, and the works and the people in the earth will be burned up.

You know, I think we need to remember something, friends, that God has fiery atomic power stored for immediate use.

He knows much more about the atom than man ever will discover.

We can't help but be reminded of God's power when 1 of these volcanoes erupts somewhere.

Have you ever read about the giant volcano Krakatoa?

I'm sure you have read some time or the other about it.

That volcano is just off the coast of Java, and it erupted in 1883.

It made the loudest noise that's ever been recorded.

It was heard for 3000 miles, and it took a solid cube of material, dirt and rock and so forth, a mile each way, ripped it loose and threw it up in the sky 17 miles, blew it to smithereens so that it just scattered everywhere.

Darkness covered great sections of the earth, and finally those ashes stretched completely around the circle of the earth.

The concussion was so terrific that great waves of water fled from its presence 50 feet high and with tremendous force struck the coastlines of Java and Sumatra so that 1, 295 villages and cities were completely wiped out.

We talk about the power of the hydrogen bomb and the atom bomb, friends.

We'll have to go some yet to approach God's power as manifested in that volcano.

Now God has these things stored for immediate use, not only in the earth, but in the heavens, because the Bible teaches, you remember we read it a moment ago, that fire would come down out of heaven, from God out of heaven, and devour them.

And it is also stored in the earth, 2 Peter 3.

And verse 5 is speaking of the flood, and verse 6 says, Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.

But the heavens and the earth, which are now by the same order kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

And so, it says, the Lord has fire stored in the earth and in the heavens, And when God strikes the earth with that great fire-atomic blast of His, the elements will melt.

The wicked will be burned up, and there will be no place for the wicked to hide, no place at all, because everything will be destroyed.

Another question asked about hell is this, how long will the wicked burn in this fire?

Now, friends, we really don't know the complete answer for this.

The Bible doesn't give it to us, and it's not wise to theorize about things if God is silent on the question.

The wicked will not burn the same length of time, they will be punished according to their works.

And behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.

So the Lord is going to punish a person according to the amount of his evil, and reward him according to the amount of his good.

He has to do this because he said he would do it in Revelation 22.

So some people will burn longer than others.

But remember this, in the final end, every person in that fire will be devoured, destroyed, annihilated, completely put out of existence.

They will not live on and on through the ages of eternity, burning and suffering.

Now the next question is, will the fire ever go out?

Yes, we can be positive, because once again God gives the answer in Isaiah.

The Gospel prophet gives the answer in Isaiah 47, verse 14, speaking of the destruction of the wicked.

Verse 14, Isaiah 47, verse 14, speaking of the destruction of the wicked, verse 14, "...behold, they shall be as stubble, " now, that's dry grass, you know, "...the fire shall burn them, they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame, there shall not be a coal to warm it, nor fire to sit before it." There's a lot in this verse, there are many a sermon there.

You see how logically it goes right down through the steps?

The fire will burn them, they will not be able to escape from it, and then the fire is going out, because there will be nowhere left even a little cold glowing that you could sit before to warm your hands at.

What will be left, then, when the fire goes out?

Malachi 4, verse 3, and here's what it says, And ye shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes unto the soles of your feet.

And the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts.

I don't saw how anybody could misunderstand that, do you?

It's so clear and plain there will be nothing left but ashes, and the Lord says the righteous will tread down the wicked, there will be ashes under their feet.

You've often heard it said, and often talked, I suppose, and often read, that the devil is in charge of hell.

Yes, indeed, he's pictured there as a monstrosity, half beast, half man, with a tail and split hooves, holding a pitchfork, telling people to never get out of the fire, poking them every once in a while with his pitchfork, stoking up the fire.

Yeah, you've heard that many, many times.

Well, I don't know where that comes from, friends, but I'll guarantee 1 thing, it's not from the Bible.

Because here's what the Bible says about that in Revelation 20, verse 10, 10.

And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone.

Now don't let anybody tell you that he'll have anything to do with keeping up the fire.

Well, let's see, the Bible gives the answer to that here in Ezekiel 28, and I'm going to read parts of several verses here, beginning with verse 18.

Here is the story of Satan now in his final end.

I will bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth, and decide of all them that they hold thee, and never shalt thou be any more." Now instead of the old devil living through the ceaseless ages of eternity and being on God's payroll as a trusted employee to keep the fires burning, he will be turned to ashes in that fire just like the rest of the wicked.

Here is another scripture, Psalm 37, verses 10 and 20, But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs, they shall consume into smoke, shall they consume away.

Did you ever hear anybody say something went up in smoke?

That's what the Bible says will happen to the wicked.

And then verse 10 says, "...for yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be.

Yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be." If I say just a little longer, and 1 thing is for sure, you'll not be able to find any wicked.

You can look ever so diligently, but you'll not find them.

Because they've been burned into ashes, into smoke they have consumed away, and God says the righteous will tread down the wicked, for there will be ashes under the soles of their feet.

Another question now, will people be real in that fire?

Many have thought that only the disembodied soul, whatever that is, will go into the fire.

Well let me read you God's answer to that, it's in Matthew 10, 28, but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Listen, hellfire destroys both the soul and the body.

The Lord specifically spoke of this in Mark 9 also when he spoke of the dangers of having 2 feet to be cast into hell and 2 hands to be cast into hell and 2 eyes to be cast into hell.

He said, if that hand offends you, better cut it off and enter into life with 1 hand rather than having 2 hands to be cast into hell.

And then he specifically taught that when men enter Hell it will be in bodily form, and that the fire will destroy both soul and body.

I wish I had time to answer all the questions that you have in your minds, but I'm sure I won't be able to, it's too big a subject.

03 No Place to Hide

A chain prisoner stood before an illustrious ruler to plead for his life.

The monarch trembled with terror as he listened to the words of the man who would soon be condemned to death.

I'll return in a moment with the amazing facts about the prince and the pauper.

Hello, this is Joe Cruz on the Amazing Facts broadcast, facts which affect you.

There's a wonderful picture that I wish to paint for you today 3 people 1 God's prophet God's messenger the other 2 a man and a woman who were living a very sinful life Paul is in prison awaiting his trial, and these 2 want some new excitement, something to amuse, something to entertain.

Time, though they live in sin, hangs heavily.

They're spending their money for that which is not bread, and their labor for that which satisfieth not.

These 2 want something else to excite, something to pass away the time, and so they send for God's prophet that he might entertain them.

The verse just before this says, He sent for Paul and heard him concerning faith in Christ.

Now listen, it takes courage to preach to 1 man or to 2 people.

There are those who can preach to the crowd, but it takes a man with a vision of the cross to preach to 2 people.

To see that a little child may be a nation, and when we have the right spirit, we shall see in 1 person something worth preaching to.

If 1 is sent to preach the truth, he must be unsparing and faithful.

He must declare the whole counsel of God.

It takes courage to preach to the man who sits in a high position when he is close to you, when he is at his own house and sitting at his table.

There sat Drusilla, there sat Felix, a prince, and here stood Paul, a pauper in terms of money and he may have had the chains on him, the chains that told of suffering for Christ's sake.

Paul never had a better chance than then of making a friend of 1 who could help him when the trial came on.

His enemies were outside, his accusers were away.

Those who were thirsting for his blood were not in this little quiet meeting place amongst the 3.

If he'll only flatter, if he'll only congratulate instead of expostulate, if he'll fawn upon Felix, if he'll compromise, he may capture this man at any rate, and he'll have a friend at court when the day of trial comes.

But listen, Paul was not made of that material.

He could suffer, he could die, but he could not sin, he could not tram.

His message was burning in his very soul.

His message had come down to him as a, Thus saith the Lord, and he seemed to take in the whole situation, and to realize that this was his only chance of dealing personally, pointedly, piercingly with a sinner in front of him and the other sinner beside him.

And so he reasoned of the cross not to begin with, of the shed blood Not to begin with.

Did he preach from this text, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son?

Did he say, He that believeth on the Son shall be saved?

He talked about God's love for righteousness and holiness and God's hatred for sin.

He meant Felix to see and feel the awfulness of his own sin.

So he reasoned of rightness, wholeness, God-likeness, purity.

He brought him up to face the blazing light and the scorching presence of God's purity.

I don't think that that side of the truth in these days is presented as it ought to be, friends.

What you need to be told is that God hates sin as much today as when Christ hung on those nails of the cross, and that He does not look on sin with the least degree of allowance or tolerance.

Yes, he reasoned of righteousness to a man who was unrighteous.

He talked about self-control, temperance to the man who was intemperate and whose passion was running wild.

His whole being was in a state of anarchy, a rebel.

And so Paul talked of righteousness and judgment.

Friends, religion that honors God is right doing, walking straight, holding a constant witness to the cleansing power of the precious blood.

It's not hunting up meetings and preachers and going to conventions, taking your pencils and writing down in little notebooks pretty little sayings, beautiful little extracts, pretty thoughts.

It's letting them blaze in your life when the convention is over, when the meetings pass, when the revival meetings are over, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, 365 days of the year, all aglow, warm with holiness unto the Lord.

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