Luke 16:19-31 - The Uncomfortable Reality of Hell

Lazarus lying at the Rich Man's gate

Opening thought:

Hell is one of those subjects that makes people uncomfortable. We hear stories of hell being a place of fire, demons, and endless torment. Throughout history many authors have written about it, Dante's Inferno for example. Western culture is very familiar with the concept. Even Hollywood has made it the subject of many movies. Whatever the context, whatever the belief, hell is definitely taught in the Bible. But the Bible's teaching about hell is not without its controversy. Some say it is only the grave with no consciousness. Others say it is a place of correction and punishment that is not eternal. Others say it is an endless agonizing punishment in fire. At a minimum, the Bible says that hell is the total absence of the favor of God and that is it a place of punishment for those who reject Christ.

Pray and Read:  Luke 16:19-31

Key Truth: Luke wrote Luke 16:19-31 to warn believers about the danger of hell as a real place of permanent punishment.

Key Application: Today I want to show you what God’s Word says about hell.

Sermon Points:

1.   Hell is a real place of punishment for those without Christ (Luke 16:19-24)

2.   Hell is the final destination for those without Christ (Luke 16:25-26)

3.   Hell is the Bible’s warning for those without Christ (Luke 16:27-31)

He Goes Before You

Image by karenwithak via Flickr

In Jesus’ last command before He ascended, he told his followers to “go and make disciples of all the nations” (Matt. 28:19) in the Great Commission. The Christian life is a journey. We are poor, wayfaring strangers. It is a pilgrimage. John Bunyan understood it when he wrote Pilgrims Progress. 

Yet he didn’t send us alone along the way. He promised, “And lo, I will be with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). He assures us that His providence and presence go before us.
Click below for full article: 

The Quintessentially American Christian Holiday

Image via Wikipedia

Thanksgiving is not just an American holiday. It is a Christian holiday.


The 1621 Pilgrim Thanksgiving in Massachusetts was a time of giving thanks to God after a harrowing first year after their arrival at Plymouth Rock on the Mayflower. Governor William Bradford proclaimed the month of November to be dedicated to "Thanksgiving unto the Lord." Their motivation? They were Christians.Bradford wrote in his diary that their voyage and settlement was motivated by "a great hope for advancing the Kingdom of God." But they weren't the only ones, and they were not by far the first. Thanksgiving is an American holiday, yes, but more than that, it is an American Christian holiday.

Ebenezer - 1 Samuel 7:2-14

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Opening thought: 

Our popular American nostalgia tells us that the first Thanksgiving was held by the Pilgrims in 1621 after the arrival of the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock. Their motivation? They were Christians who realized that all blessings come from the Lord. The 1621 Pilgrim Thanksgiving in Massachusetts was a time of thanks giving to God. Governor William Bradford proclaimed the entire month of November to be dedicated to "Thanksgiving unto the Lord." Bradford wrote in his diary that their voyage and settlement was motivated by "a great hope for advancing the Kingdom of God."

Two years later in 1623, after a severe drought that ended the day in which the Plymouth colony concluded of a colony-wide day of prayer and fasting, Bradford proclaimed another Thanksgiving. This was the Thanksgiving most Americans picture:

In as much as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetable, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience; now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November ye 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings. William Bradford, Ye Governor of Ye Colony.

Celebrations of “thanksgiving” would become a deeply rooted American tradition, usually brought on by periods of great hardship. Israel had some of the same kinds of hardships.

Contextual Notes:

At the point of our passage today, Israel has just come off their lowest place. The worst thing imaginable had happened to Israel. They had lost the Ark of the Covenant, the box that Moses made for them at Mount Sinai and in it placed the Ten Commandments! It was a national tragedy. They had lost all that made them Israel, the very presence of God. The Philistines captured it at the Battle of Aphek (1 Sam 4:1, 11). At no other time, not even the Holocaust of Hitler, had Israel and the promises to Abraham been so close to extinction.

From this point of repentance and trust in God, Israel would rise to her highest peak as a nation, and it culminated with the thanksgiving Israel gave to God at Ebenezer.

Key Truth: Samuel wrote 1 Samuel 7:2-14 to remind the Israelites to be thankful that the Lord is our help.

Key Application: Today I want to show you what God’s Word says about being thankful.

Pray and Read:  1 Samuel 7:2-14

Sermon Points:

1.   God begins with Confession & Repentance (1 Sam 7:2-6)

2.   God moves against Attack with Redemption (1 Sam 7:7-9)

3.   God brings Victory & Thanksgiving (1 Sam 7:10-14)

How to stop hearing from God

( . . . and burn completely out)

Henry Blackaby in Experiencing God says that God is still speaking in this day and age through the pages of Scripture, and Scripture says the same thing. Jesus said, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). An audible voice? Not likely. But in your heart that still small voice is there when the Holy Spirit is present through a vital, growing relationship with Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 6:19; Matt. 10:20).

Elijah heard God speak in a whisper (1 Kings 19:11-13). Young Samuel heard God calling him in the night, and he answered, “Speak, for your servant is listening” (1 Sam 3:10). Isaiah heard God ask, “Whom shall I send?” (Isaiah 6:8), and Isaiah answered, “Here am I. Send me!”

But you don’t have to listen to God. You can ignore him. “God does speak, now one way, now another – though man may not perceive it.” (Job 33:14). Without a listening heart anchored in a relationship with Jesus, God’s speaking might not sound like anything unusual to you (John 12:28-29). Here are some surefire ways to stop hearing from God and shipwreck yourself.

Are you making disciples? 1 Thessalonians 2:7-12

Opening thought: 

The last command the Lord Jesus gave the church was what we call the Great Commission: “Go and make disciples of all the nations . . . “ A large manufacturing plant came to our town producing shoes. The corporate management invested great sums of money and many hours among many people to produce the finest shoes possible. Investors spent money on salaries the best staffing and management they could find. Digital sewing machinery was installed for shoe-making. Materials were purchased from all over and shipped in to make the shoes. The plant is now in operation with several hundred employees busy working hard. Machines are running at full capacity. Activity is at a maximum.

The international president of the company arrives for an inspection and asks the production manager, “How many shoes have we produced so far?”

“None,” the manager answers matter of factly.

“None!” the president is shocked. “How long has this plant been in operation?”

“Two years.”

“Two years? And still no shoes?”

“That’s right,” says the manager, “no shoes, but we are really busy. In fact, we have been so busy that we are nearly all tired out. We don’t have any shoes yet, but we have been very active in our jobs.”

What do you think the management would do in such a case? Have coronaries? Become angry? Be concerned? Fire somebody? Find the problem and fix it? Probably all these things, because the reason for this shoe plant’s existence is to produce shoes.

Now let’s think about the church. There is a lot of activity. Men and women are here working very hard. The budget shows a lot of money invested into a lot of ministries. The church is very active. But the purpose of the church is to produce disciples.

When the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association goes into a city to do an evangelistic outreach, they make numerous calls to church to get the names of men and women who know their Bibles well enough to lead someone to Christ. In one large city, when the caller got the church secretary on the phone and asked her for such a person, she replied, “Would you repeat those qualifications again, please?” The man from BGEA did.

After a long pause, the secretary said rather wistfully, “You know, we did have a man like that in church once, but he moved away.” Jesus himself said, “the harvest is plentiful but he workers are few (Matt. 9:37). If we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that the same is true today. Spiritually qualified workers – disciples who labor to make other disciples – are rare.[1] Instead, most churches are really busy, but they are not producing any disciples, any leaders – and they just keep on going.

Praying From His Victory

Everything we have in the Christian life is a gift from our Lord Jesus. We can’t achieve it; we must receive it. In prayer we learn that. Prayer is the laboratory in which we learn to take the theological truths of Scripture and apply them to life. We receive gifts through the Cross and Resurrection that provide us a new position from which to pray. We pray from this new position purchased for us by His sacrifice at Calvary. In prayer we learn to appropriate the gifts of the Lord Jesus. Here's what I mean . . .

Persecuted Church: Iran, Libya, Azerbaijan

Believers suffer in Iran

Youcef and Tina Nadarkhani

IRAN - Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani remains in Lakan Prison awaiting a ruling on his execution. He continues to stand strong in his faith and remains in good spirits and health. The 11th circuit court in Gilan is still awaiting a response to their two letters to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini. Youcef’s attorney says that if the court does not receive a response in a month, they will issue a ruling in mid-December. 


Youcef was arrested in 2009, and convicted a year later of apostasy (abandoning Islam). On appeal, the Iranian Supreme Court sent the decision back to the Gilan court to consider other evidence. Prayer and international pressure has given the court anxiety about a ruling, so they have appealed twice to the Ayatollah, but he has not responded.

Hebrews 11:35-40 - The Persecuted Church

Our Suffering Brothers and Sisters

Opening thought: 

The old man stood in the Roman arena. He was pastor of the church at Smyrna, and a disciple of the Apostle John himself. The Roman government had decided to locate and punish him in an outbreak of persecution in that area of Asia Minor. After pursuing him for some days, when the Roman soldiers came, he refused to keep running but instead fed them a meal, then was properly arrested. He stood now in the arena before the proconsul in Smyrna. The historian Eusebius takes the story from here, “And when the proconsul pressed him, and said, Swear, and I will release thee, revile Christ; Polycarp said, Eighty and six years have I served him, and in nothing hath he wronged me; and how, then, can I blaspheme my King, who saved me?” The proconsul, somewhat embarrassed but bound by his threats, had the elderly pastor tied to a stake and burned to death.

When we think of persecution and Christian martyrs, the picture comes to mind of Christians being thrown to the lions in the Roman arenas of the first century. Not many of us in the West associate persecution with believers today. Nevertheless, most of the world does not live in a free society where attending church is considered a choice. This isn't the case for our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the world. Believers living in still-Communist, Hindu, and Islamic countries are being imprisoned, enslaved, tortured and martyred daily.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 24 that one of the signs of the last days will be an increase in the persecution of believers, and he said in John 15:18-21 that if the world persecuted Him, then they should expect that the world would persecute his disciples. There were more martyrs in the 20th century than in all previous centuries combined, and the pace of persecution is increasing. 
Click below to read full sermon . . .

Human Trafficking in NC (WRAL)

 Thanks to WRAL Investigates for this important story for North Carolina.

• NC human trafficking resources
• Human trafficking: Report a tip
• Recognizing the signs of human trafficking
• Human trafficking FAQs
• Hotline statistics

Through the Night Watch

The darkness can be fearful. You don’t know exactly what all is there. Perhaps the darkness is of the soul, a time of darkness in your life with the Lord or in your circumstances, what John of the Cross called “the dark night of the soul.” Jesus has promised to be ever with you: “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). Through the night watch, the Lord is there.

There is no difference in darkness or light to Him (Job 34:22; Psalm 139:11-12; Jeremiah 23:24). Often the dark is a time to be quiet with God (Psalm 46:10), because God speaks in the darkness (Matt. 10:27; Job 33:13-18). 


From one end of the Scripture to the other we hear His tender pleading, “Fear not!” Fear will rob you of the peace of God. When the Spirit of the living God indwells us, fear is not supposed to control us continually – even if the fear is from intimidation or the unknown. 

Fear is always the tool of the adversary who uses it to make us doubt God’s goodness, doubt God’s power, doubt God’s intentions. Fear gives birth to doubt. Doubt destroys trust and gives birth to unbelief (John 20:24-29; Heb. 3:12, 19; 4:1-2). Paul says that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-discipline (2 Tim. 1:7).  Through the night watch, the Lord is there.

We fear because we doubt his love and care. You can defeat the fear found in the darkness (Psalm 3:5-6, 91:1-7). The baseline weapon against fear is being convinced of the love of God. Perfect love casts out a spirit of fear (1 John 4:18). Plant yourself in the Word (Psalm 16:7; 119:55, 148). Lift up a song of praise (Psalm 63:6-8; 77:6; 149:4-5), joining the Lord as He sings over you in the night (Psalm 42:8; Zeph. 3:17; Isa. 62:5). 

Sink down into the loving heart of God. Cease striving and rest (Psalm 4:8; 127:2) in the comfort of His faithfulness (Psalm 92:1-2; 121:2-8), in the confidence of His protection (Isaiah 27:2-3; Prov. 3:23-26; Psalm 91:1-2). Remain still in the darkness (Psalm 46:10). God walks on the darkness and He wears it as a covering (Psalm 18:9, 11). Therefore you will find Him in the dark night watch (Lam. 2:19). 

Pay attention in the night watch, and listen to what the Lord gives you of Himself (Psalm 3:3, 5). Listen simply. Let Him be your confidence (Prov. 3:26). Thank Him for the sweetness of His Presence. Obey what He tells you. Through the night watch, the Lord is there.

What has God revealed to you from His Word, and how is He applying it to your life? How is He speaking to your need?

Related articles

• Face to Face (genebrooks.blogspot.com)
• Consumed by Him by consuming Him (genebrooks.blogspot.com)
• Pastor Youcef's letter to believers (genebrooks.blogspot.com)
• Peace in His Presence (genebrooks.blogspot.com)
• Nothing but the Blood of Jesus (genebrooks.blogspot.com)

You're excommunicated -- and outta here!

Really . . . who does this stuff?