Professor John Murray once called the fear of God "The Soul of Godliness." It was vital in his estimation. As we walk in the fear of God, everything we do is affected. However, have you ever stopped to consider how the fear of God affects our evangelism? Pastor Ventura addresses this vital question by biblically examining the heart of the apostle Paul from 2 Corinthians 5:11. May we be challenged by Paul’s example to think and act evangelistically, especially in light of the eternal plight that awaits the ungodly.

["Pomp and Circumstance"] Good morning. Good to see everyone. As I thought about the sermon this morning, this is going to be a real shot in the arm as it were. It's a real challenging subject. And to hear it at 8.30 a.m., it will prepare you, I think, for the rest of what you will receive throughout this day.

So I do want to begin by thanking the NCFIC for having me. It's a privilege. I was able to speak at the Church Discipline Conference last year, and it was a wonderful delight. And to be invited to speak for this opportunity is, again, a great privilege. And I thank you all for attending so readily to the Word of God throughout the conference.

So before we come to the topic at hand, friends let's pray again and ask the Lord's blessings on our time. Let's pray. Our Father we're very grateful for all of your mercies that come to us mediated through Jesus Christ, our Lord. We're thankful that at your right hand there is one, even the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the righteous who is our advocate, who makes intercession for us. And we're thankful, Lord, that even as the psalmist said, early will I seek thee.

Lord, we seek you early this morning. We seek you, Lord, for your blessings and your grace and your help from on high. We pray, oh God, that you would own all that is said and done, Lord, not only in this room, but in all the various places where your word is being preached this morning. Oh God, help the speakers, we pray, and hearers alike. We ask that you would come by thy mighty Holy Spirit and quicken and animate your truth to us, O God, and that indeed you would motivate us through the message that we'll consider to be greater evangelists for your cause, honor, and glory.

O God, help us, we pray, we feel ourselves to be so weak not only in this regard but in many regards so be our portion be our aid Holy Spirit and power us for the task at hand and we pray all of these things in that wonderful and exalted name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. In a sermon entitled Turn or Burn, the well-known preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon said these very revealing words back in the 1800s. Here's what Spurgeon said. Two hundred years ago the predominant strain of the pulpit was one of terror, for it was like Mount Sinai thundering forth the dreadful wrath of God.

And from the lips of the Puritans, Baxter and Bunyan, you heard the most fearful sermons full to the brim with warnings of the judgment to come." Spurgeon said, now while it may be true that the Puritans went too far in their emphasis in this regard, the age in which we live, back in the 1800s, has sought to forget these terrors altogether and if we dare tell men and women that God will punish them for their sins it is charged upon us that we are trying to bully them into religion. Spurgeon said quote the cry of this age is God is merciful, God is love to which he responded by saying and who said that he wasn't? However he went on to say that along with declaring that God is merciful and God is love, we must also remember that he is equally just, inflexibly and severely just. Now dear friends here today, it's striking to me that as it was in Spurgeon's Day, again hundreds of years ago, the same is also true for our time as well You and I are living at a point in history where there is very little mention of the burning hot wrath of God against the ungodly so much so that personally I can't remember the last time I heard a sermon on this subject from another person and perhaps the same is true for you as well.

No, today we are living in a time where sinners, where ungodly men and women are constantly hearing grace-saturated sermons. Today the ungodly are being told that God loves them and has a wonderful plan for their lives and that in the final day God's love will win over his eternal justice against them as the false teacher Rob Bell says in one of his popular books. Now dear friends, please don't get me wrong this morning and what I've just said. To be sure, our great God is a God of immeasurable love. Get that down if you're taking notes.

He is a God of immeasurable love. He is the God who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. However, having said this, let's never forget that while all of these things are true, our Bibles tell us that he is angry with the wicked all the day long Dear friends according to Hebrews 10 in verse 31 the writer said that it is a fearful thing To fall into the hands of the living God and according to Jesus Christ own words Not the words of Jonathan Edwards not the words of the fundamentalist Bible bashing preacher, but the words of Jesus Christ in Matthew 25 and verse 46. He said of the ungodly, and these shall go away into everlasting punishment. And so in view of this missing note in our day, dear friends, I'm very glad that I'm able to speak to you about this vital subject which I've entitled the fear of God as a powerful motivation for evangelism.

Dear ones, as we think about this whole matter of the fear of God at this conference and how it should affect our lives practically speaking, One thing that we must never forget is that this topic is indispensable connected to being a primary impetus for us to open our mouths widely so that with broken hearts in obedience to Christ's great commission we might plead with men and women to flee from the wrath to come." Now Brethren if ever there was a man of God Who had the fear of God before his eyes as a grand motive for evangelizing the law surely it was the Apostle Paul? Paul was a man who as it were had Eternity stamped on his eyeballs He was a man who clearly understood the plight of the ungodly, so much so that he could say, for example, in 1 Corinthians 9 and verse 16, that necessity, literally a continual intense distress, was laid upon him, so much so that he cried out saying woe is Me if I do not preach the gospel Now concerning this matter with the Apostle Paul this one text of Scripture for us to consider in this regard.

And it's found in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. And I ask you please to turn with me there in your Bibles this morning, 2 Corinthians chapter 5. And I'll be reading verses 9 to 11 in your hearing. However, the specific focus of our attention will be on verse 11. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, picking up at verse 9.

Here is Paul continues to speak about his life and labors as a minister of Christ in light of the fact that some were calling into question his apostolic credentials. He writes the following and says, 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 9, he writes, Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to him. Why Paul, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done whether good or bad verse 11 knowing therefore the terror of the Lord we persuade men but we are well known to God and I also trust are well known in your consciences." Now as we think about Paul we need to ask What motivated him for ministry of course a lot of things that could be said? But if we had to get to the heart of it. What made him a diligent careful blameless servant of Christ to the end that he could say in chapter 4 and verse 2 of this book that he could commend himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

Well friend I think if we had to sum up the whole matter concerning Paul what made him a faithful minister, what caused him to labor as he did. I think if we had to sum up the whole matter we could say that the sum of the matter is that for Paul he feared the Lord. The answer would be that the apostle had a deep abiding reverential respect and a religious consciousness of the Almighty God that had completely shaped and governed all that he did in life. And this is exactly, beloved, what the fear of God is to do for all of us who are Christians. Dear ones, we've been considering at this conference what the fear of God is.

This is the theme of the conference. The fear of God. What is it all about? Well, this is what it's all about. Simply stated, from the perspective of being a Christian the fear of God is that of us having a profound sense of God's greatness majesty and power and our accountability to him with the result being that negatively speaking we hate sin and positively speaking we follow after the Lord and all that he has said to us in his word again friends from the perspective of being a Christian the fear of God is realizing that is holy all seeing eye is always upon us and therefore in view of this we seek to walk circumspectly in life.

Therefore I wholeheartedly agree with the great expository preacher from another generation named Alexander McLaren when he said that the fear of God is that by which we are quote ever conscious of his presence with us so that we make it our supreme end and aim to submit our wills to his commandments and to do those things which are well pleasing in his sight. Now it is this matter of doing those things which are well pleasing in the sight of God that Paul begins to speak about in verse 9 from our chapter as I just read in your hearing. Now remember again as I mentioned that the setting of this text of Scripture before us now and really throughout this whole entire book was that of the Apostle Paul giving a defense for his apostleship which was being called into question by some of the Corinthians, based on false teachers that had come to the church. As some of you may know, there were those who, after Paul wrote his first letter, were challenging his mandate and his motive for ministry. And so here in the section of Scripture It was letting the Corinthians know the truth about who he really was I mean was Paul and his traveling companions Really true ministers of Christ was God really blessing their labors Well the answer to the question is yes.

And so Paul sets forth this matter saying for example in the previous chapter in verse 8 that although he and his comrades were pressed on every side they were not in despair. Why Paul? Because God was with them that's why. We were crushed but not destroyed. Why?

The Lord was upholding us by his grace and then in our chapter? He says in verse 8 that even though they might lose their lives as ministers of Christ nonetheless. They were confident They were persuaded beyond the shadow of a doubt that if we die in this gospel Calling that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord And so having spoken of the afterlife so confidently in verse 8 Paul then draws the logical conclusion of this in verse 9. Note the words again he says as he connects his thought with the previous passage he writes therefore in light of the fact that would be with the Lord we make it our aim that is to say our goal our objective that whether present or absent we would be well pleasing to God. Now again think about the the Corinthian background with reference to Paul by saying this clearly the apostle is showing that he and his friends, his fellow ministers, did not live carelessly as some of the Corinthians were purporting, despite what his detractors had said.

Paul and his companions were not self-focused in their ministry, for as he says in this book in chapter 4 in verse 5, they did not preach themselves, but Jesus Christ is Lord and ourselves as your servants for Christ's sake. And despite what his detractors said, Paul did not act domineering or controlling concerning the Corinthians. For as he says in chapter 10 in verse 1 of this book, I myself plead with you, and he says that he does this by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. Well, as the apostle Paul then continues to speak about or to think about his present life in view of his future destiny of being with the Lord, of dwelling with Jesus forever and ever as he spoke of in verse 8. He then goes on in verse 10 to set forth another reason for why he lived the way that he did.

You see, not only was there this certainty of being with Christ after death that caused him to live in a certain way, but there was also the matter of his accountability to Christ on the last day and so he says in verse 10 of this chapter, note the words again in your Bibles, he writes for. Again he grounds another reason for this. For, here's why we live the way that we do, for the explanatory Clause tells us why he did it. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Now when Paul here speaks about us all appearing before the judgment seat of Christ to receive the things done in the body whether good or evil etc.

He means all without exception be that believer or unbeliever. Here Paul means every single person in the world and perhaps there's some here who as Christians might find this statement troubling. I remember speaking with some Christians sometime thinking that this fact that we would have to stand before the judgment seat of Christ would be a terrible thing for the Christian well friends even though the question has been asked will will God judge the sins of believers on the last day will or should Christians be in a dread of that final day when we stand before Christ so that there might be something that we've done that has not been covered by his blood to the end that we would be consigned to the lowest part of hell friends to answer such thoughts I say that according to the Bible none of these things are true according to the Bible friends listen if you are in Christ if Christ has died for you, if you are a true believer and have that evidenced by the fact that you have a transformed life By His grace, dear friends, I tell you with the full authority of Scripture, without any hesitation, your sins will never condemn you.

What did Paul say in Romans 8 and verse 1? There he writes those most glorious words, therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. I'm a Christian, but what about that one thing Lord? Maybe I didn't confess it.

Maybe it wasn't covered by the blood. Friends it's not true, It's a lie of the devil. No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And then Paul can go on in Romans 8, 33 and 34 and say who shall bring a charge against God's elect. Paul speaks to all the world, speaking even before God in this presence, who shall bring a charge?

Something negative to condemn God's elect. Paul asks the question rhetorically. It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died and furthermore is risen who is even at the right hand of God who also makes intercession for us.

Who could possibly condemn the believer Who has put his trust and hope in the finished work of Christ Jesus our Lord it is God who justifies If the judge of all judges justifies, I'll tell you there's no one in the final day who will condemn It is God who? Justifies and so here then friends is good news which you dear Christian must constantly preach to yourselves sometimes our hearts condemn us sometimes the devil whispers in our ears and says oh really is that what a true Christian looks like? And we need to rail back to him and say there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus Christ has settled the score once for all time therefore we should regularly say with the hymn writer of old Jesus paid it all all to him I owe sin had left a crimson stain, but glory to God, he washed it white as snow. Now having said this, we still need to answer the question, which is, what does it mean that as Christians we will stand before the judgment seat of Christ to give an account and so to answer the question as simply as I can let me say that for us who are believers it means that while this judgment will absolutely have nothing to do with our eternal destinies the point seems to be that according to the broad teaching of Scripture it will have to do with what we will receive in glory or will not receive in glory based on what we've done on earth or have not done on earth for the cause, honor, and glory of Jesus Christ our Lord and his gospel.

Dear friends, the teaching of the New Testament in this regard seems to be in such passages as Matthew 5 and verse 12, Matthew 16 and verse 27, 1 Corinthians 3, 11 to 15, that out of grace, not out of debt, but out of grace, Christ will reward the faithfulness of his people. The teaching seems to be that while again this judgment will have nothing to do with our salvation it will have to do with our service to the Lord and so in view of such a truth the words of Jesus is found in Revelation 22 and verse 12 makes sense for there he said and behold I come quickly and my reward is with me to give to everyone, obviously the believers the one he rewards, to give everyone according to his work. Well again, as Paul here thinks about having to appear before the judgment seat of Christ, and every person being there without exception, notice with me what he says in verse 11, our specific passage under consideration. Here as he sets forth his great ambition in life, he writes the following words, first in 11a, and says, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.

Now, although we might not realize this, We should. There are two ways to understand these particular words. And before I studied this passage, I always saw it as one way to understand these words. But that's what happens as pastors. Sometimes we have a certain understanding of a text of scripture.

We think that's what it says And then we go to many other commentators and scholars and say you know it might actually be that Paul is saying something else here So there might be two particular ways to understand this Phrase of scripture and so what are they well first in keeping the sentence in its context, and here in the larger teaching of this book, it very likely could be, again as many commentators suggest, that instead of viewing the words of 11A as Paul's grand desire to persuade unsaved people of the truthfulness of the gospel, that's how I originally always thought it meant and that's only what I thought it meant, the truthfulness of the gospel seeking to persuade men and women of that so that they might be saved. It actually might be here that Paul is speaking about persuading the Corinthians about the truth of himself and his apostolic ministry. Now remember again, this is what Paul was dealing with in this letter. So that's not a foreign concept. Dear friends of Corinth, some were saying that Paul was fickle, some were saying that he was proud, others were saying that his bodily presence was weak and his speech was contemptible, as he says in chapter 10 and verse 10 of this book and so it could be that since people were unjustly calling his ministry and motives into question that because he knew that he had to appear before the judgment seat of Christ on the last day to give an account to the Lord and that because indeed he was governed by the fear of God that he was saying to the Corinthians here that knowing this terror of having to stand before God even the fear as a a child of God that he was persuading them of his sincerity in this regard and to be honest such an interpretation as this goes quite nicely with what Paul goes on to say in the rest of the verse.

Having said that since he personally knew that what it meant rather to have a reverential awe for God as a Christian. He sought to persuade men of the genuineness of his ministry. He then goes on to give two comments about this in the rest of the text. Notice his words again. He writes in 11a, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.

Again, we seek to persuade men that we're true gospel ministers having this fear of God We seek to persuade men of our own integrity as he's been doing throughout this letter and those who labored with him He goes on to say but we are well known to God which is to say that even if you Corinthians don't believe the truth about us, God knows the truth about us. And then in 11c, as somewhat of a rebuke to the Corinthians, who knew him, because he labored among them, he says, and not only are we known to God, but I trust we are also well known to your consciences. And so here then, dear friends, we certainly have one legitimate way to understand the words of 11a, which again is how many scholarly evangelical commentators understand these words. This could be what Paul is saying here. However, having said this, of course, there is still another way to understand the words here.

And many other commentators take this view and it's specifically connected to my theme and my message this morning. And so what is this view? Well, this view is that when Paul speaks in verse 10 of the judgment seat of Christ, the tribunal of tribunals where both believer and unbeliever will stand, and then he says in verse 11, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord that it seems most likely here that the terror that the apostle is referring to was not specifically that fatherly fear which a Christian feels with reference to sinning against God and so he conducts himself in a certain way but rather it was that dreadful wrath of God which unbelievers will experience if they die in their sins without Christ. And so Paul says in view of this that he and his traveling companions sought to persuade men literally convince all non-Christians to become believers. Friends, to state the matter another way.

Since the apostle knew that non-Christians were treasuring up for themselves wrath, for the day of wrath, as he speaks of in Romans 2 and verse 2. The point is, he passionately sought to urge all people to immediately repent of their sins and fly to Christ by faith alone That they might be saved by his grace alone knowing therefore the terror of the Lord in this regard we persuade men And of course this evangelistic interpretation also fits well in the context here. And I say this because having spoken of the judgment seat of Christ in verse 10 and then having spoken of the terror of the Lord in verse 11, Paul goes on as you know in verse 18 of this chapter to say that he and his fellow laborers were involved in the ministry of reconciliation an evangelistic ministry the reconciling of rebellious sinners to God through the gospel. For as Paul says in verse 19, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. Additionally, in this regard in verse 20 of this chapter, Note the words in your Bibles.

Paul says with reference to the world at large as opposed to of that which had specific application to the circumstances at Corinth As Philip Hughes rightly says in his helpful commentary on this passage Paul says here We are ambassadors of Christ as though God were pleading through us. We implore you, unsaved people, and of course there were unsaved people at Corinth, we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God, and then in showing how lost sinners get reconciled to God Paul goes on to say in verse 21 how this happens namely for God for he God the Father made him Christ the Son who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. And so here then is a second way of understanding of verse 11, a mean text for this morning. Clearly there is an evangelistic flavor in this section of Scripture. And if some of the Corinthians were denying the evangelistic heart of Paul to the lost, Again what he said in verse 11 is true, namely that God knew the truth about him and his friends in this regard and so also did the Corinthians because they had been the fruit of Paul's gospel endeavors to them.

Friends, dear ones, rather long story short, since Paul understood that on the last day unbelievers would appear before the judgment seat of Christ, He sought to convince them of the gospel He sought to persuade them of the gospel and this is why in using the same Greek word in our verse for persuade Luke writes in Acts 18 in verse 4 that Paul reasoned in the synagogues every Sabbath, doing what? Persuading both Jews and Greeks. And so having set forth both possible interpretations of this particular text, Which one is correct? Which one is best? Well, personally I believe they both have merit.

Here I think that Paul's words have a double flavor, or as the reformed theologian Richard Pratt rightly says in his helpful commentary on this book they include quote a broad purpose. And so in focusing specifically then on the second interpretation of the passage with reference to knowing the fear of God, the awful dread of God, his wrath against unbelievers and focusing on that specific view of this text as Paul thought about the appending wrath of God which most surely will come upon unbelievers what broad aspects about this particular subject should motivate all of us here today to want to seek to win the lost as the Apostle Paul did based on the fear of the Lord. This morning as we think about the topic, the fear of God, and how it could be used very practically in our lives with reference to the lost around us. What things must always be in our minds, dear Christians, if we would passionately and earnestly persuade and convince men and women of their lost estate and their need to immediately repent of their sins and to trust in Christ the only Savior of sinners. Well there are three things that I want to suggest in connection to this broad matter and they are the following.

First the eternality of the human soul secondly the factuality of the final day of judgment, and then thirdly the reality of hell. Now friends, Let me put all my cards on the table and say that I am preaching this message because I want to see all of you become ambassadors for Christ in the lower a sense of the word. I want you to become more evangelistic. This is my burden talked about burnings in the soul the other night. Here's my burden.

Here's why I'm here. I want you to be stirred up to do the work of your master. Since evangelism is directly connected to the fear of the Lord, and we're called in the Word of God to preach the gospel to every creature. I want our topic to become a powerful motivation for you to speak to others about Jesus. As a matter of fact, when I would preach open air, I did that for 20 years and probably 10 of those years in New York City, that's where I was converted.

People asked, could anything good come out of New York City? One thing did. God saved me. My wife too. And we got married in New York, so there's a few good things.

But as I would stand on the subway platform and think about opening my mouth to all these raw pagans, ranked pagans, and all kind of people who hated Christ and His Gospel. It would be these three things that I would repeat over and over in my mind. The eternality of the human soul, the factuality of the final day of judgment and the reality of the horrors of hell. You must speak, Rob. You must speak.

And so first, the eternality of the human soul. And friends, I trust that with any great persuasion to use Paul's word in our text. That I don't have to convince you long and hard that men and women have never dying souls. I trust that you realize that contrary to the false cults round about us which say that the soul will be annihilated after death that rather friends it will spend eternity in one of two places let that sink in your mind eternality eternity rather in one of two places because the soul is the immaterial part of man that will live forever and ever is the unmistakable teaching of the Bible. In such passages as Psalm 23 verse 6, Ecclesiastes 12 verse 7, 1 Corinthians 15, 51 to 58, 1 John 3 verse 15 all make this plain.

Dear friends, once the soul is created it is eternal. Never-ending! And no doubt this is why Jesus could say, for example, in that text that I quoted earlier, Matthew 25 and verse 46, not that the wicked in the final day will cease to exist? No, but these will go into everlasting punishment. What do we do with that verse for the annihilationist?

And then Jesus says in the very next phrase, and the righteous into everlasting glory. If everlasting is not true for us, or if it's true for us, it's true for the unbeliever as well. If it's not true for him, it's not true for us, but it is true for us, therefore it's true for them as well. The eternality of the The eternality of the human soul. These will go away into everlasting punishment.

Everlasting. Just when you think the punishment is over, on and on it goes. And no doubt this is why Jesus in speaking about the human soul said in Matthew 16 and verse 26 What profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul. Jesus said, what will a man give in exchange for his soul? Why?

Because it lasts forever. It's of greatest importance. It's of greatest value. Jesus takes all the world's good and places them on one side of the scale and then places one human soul on the other. And it's the human soul that far outweighs all the trinkets and the passing things of this life because the soul shall live forever.

Brethren, people will live in one of two places after death, either eternal under eternal condemnation in hell or in eternal bliss and glory. And I say that such a thought should break our hearts regarding the ungodly. I mean it's not enough for us to think, oh we'll be with the Lord forever and ever, ever present with the Lord. No. But think about the ungodly suffering the holy wrath of God for their sins against him forever and ever.

I say it should be a powerful motive to cause us to want to speak to them, to call them to fly and to flee from the wrath to come. Secondly, there is the matter of the factuality of the final day of judgment. Dear ones, it doesn't matter what people say. There is coming a day in which God will judge the world in righteousness. Listen, there's an appointment that unbelievers will keep.

Regardless of how they might rationalize the thought, as we considered earlier, we must all stand. No one's excluded. Each and every one of us. Black skin, white skin, beige skin, wherever we're from, tall, short it matters not, we must all stand before the tribunals of tribunals to give an account of the deeds done in the body whether they be good or whether they be evil. For as the writer of Hebrew says in Hebrews 9 and verse 27 it is appointed by whom God it's in his book we have an appointment we have a date with destiny It is appointed for man to die once Then after this the judgment Unbelievers will have their date in court, I guarantee it.

And on that day which is the climax of the ages, they will stand before the Almighty Christ, who has all judgment committed to his hands and on that day the book shall be open and because they have continued in their sins and have had no time to repent and to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for the saving of their souls because they were more concerned about other things they will hear those most terrible words of the Lord Christ. Matthew 7 and verse 23 when he said depart from me I never knew you you worker of lawlessness. Might there be someone here today who will hear those most terrible words on the last day? You've heard some gospel preaching my dear friends during this conference. I've been encouraged my first time to the the bigger conference at the end of the year here.

And I'm glad that the men have sought to press you to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible speaks to us, it doesn't say tomorrow is the day of salvation, today is the day of salvation today if you hear his voice, heart and not your heart! And if there's anyone that's not saved here you put yourself in a very bad path, The broad road that leads to destruction. I would plead with you this morning to repent and to turn to Christ for life and salvation. You have an appointment you're going to keep, my dear friend.

And that appointment might be this evening, might be this afternoon, might be this morning. It's in God's book. Therefore you must heed the call of the gospel. Depart from me, I never knew you. The most terrible words.

This Christ who would receive you now, this Christ who says in Matthew 11, come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest in the final day because you had no time for Christ you loved your sins you loved your pornography you loved your homosexuality your fornication your idolatry your games and your trinkets more than Christ because you love those things more than the Savior who's the lover of your souls on that day he will say not come to me but depart from me most terrible words therefore I say with the prophet of old why would you die for those things instead of Christ the lover of your soul Christ who forgive all your sins Christ who give you the Holy Spirit, Christ who give you a title to heaven, Christ who will walk with you in the hard times, Christ who will be with you all of your days, the shepherd leading and guiding his people. My friend you make a foolish choice today is the day of salvation Today is to come to that Christ, the day to come to that Christ by faith and say, Oh Lord, wash me from my sins and make me a new creation.

Thirdly and finally then, along with the eternality of the human soul and the factuality of the final day of judgment, there is the matter of the reality of the horrors of Hell as being another powerful motivator for us to evangelize the lost. Now, brothers and sisters, when we think about the reality of Hell, I never want you to forget four things, and the first is that hell is factual, the second is that hell is fearful, third is that hell is fair, and fourth that hell is final. And so firstly that hell is factual. Beloved, Hell is not a metaphor in scripture. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment.

Hell is not as some tell us a mere symbol or a figment of one's imagination. No rather it's a real place where the ungodly are cast into. Hell as I said in the outset is not that which was made up by Jonathan Edwards or the fundamentalist Baptist preacher. No, rather it's that which Jesus Christ spoke more of than heaven. And why did he do it?

Because the lovely Christ didn't want sinners to go there. So when your parents speak to you kids about the gospel and they urge repentance and faith in Christ, It's because they love you and they want to see you in heaven, they want to see you converted. Hell is factual. But secondly, hell is fearful. And it's fearful because how it's described in the Bible.

A place of outer darkness, a place of unquenchable fire, a place where there'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth, a place where there's no rest night or day, a place of everlasting burnings, a place of conscious never-ending torments, the lake of fire which burns with brimstone." Friends, hell was a place where a man was denied a drop of water. You remember as Jesus spoke of it? And therefore it makes sense that Calvin could say that by such expressions of hell the Holy Spirit certainly intended to confound all of our senses with dread. And that's right. And again it's because we live in this dumbed down society and this wishy-washy preaching that as I said in the outset we almost never hear sermons on the fear of God anymore the wrath of God the judgment of God or hell it's that such topics as this don't make us weep more That hell is factual and hell is fearful.

But thirdly, it's also fair. It's fair why? Because sin is an infinite crime against our Creator. And Therefore his justice demands that we be punished in eternity. We be punished in hell for all eternity.

Friends, those who reject God here and choose their sins over him, he rejects them there and punishes them forever. Those who say no to God in this life and go on breaking his eternal laws, he confirms their choice in the life to come by his eternal wrath being poured out upon them. Therefore, what God does in this regard is just and right and no one will be able to accuse him in the final day of being unfair and fourthly and finally hell is final and this is perhaps something that breaks my heart the most Dear friends here this morning, listen once people get to hell there's no exits on the walls of hell as it were is written the words forever final, no exits, no escape. As one writer says, All the roads to hell are one-way streets. And between hell and heaven there is a great gulf fixed so that once a sinner passes out of this world there remains absolutely no hope for salvation.

Listen, dear friends. Sinners will burn in hell forever. Sinners will weep in hell forever. Sinners will howl in hell forever, forever the smoke of their torment ascendeth forever. Forever they will experience the wrath of God.

And So here then are three very powerful lines of argument which are connected to the fear of the Lord which I believe should motivate us to even go out today to open our mouths widely for the gospel. Brother, while of course the love of God is also to be another primary means for us preaching the gospel for as Paul says in verse 14 of this chapter, the love of Christ compels us. Nonetheless friends, listen, that men and women have never dying souls, that they will face the judge of all judges in the final day, and that the horrors of hell await those who die outside of Christ. Friends, these things are also to cause us to plead with men and women everywhere that they might repent and believe the Gospel. Again, in quoting Spurgeon regarding this matter concerning the fear of God as a motive for evangelism He said quote save some Oh Christian by all means save some from yonder flames and outer darkness and the weeping wailing and gnashing of teeth Spurgeon said seek to save some He said let this as in the case of the apostle, be your great ruling object in life so that by all means you may save some.

And so may it be for you here today, for me. May it be that with the fear of God in our hearts concerning what awaits the ungodly on the final day and with the gospel in our hearts as well, that we will be God's holy instruments to preach the good news of a crucified, buried and risen Savior who now offers salvation for all who turn to Him by faith for it. And so as I begin to close I want to do so with one last word to those of you who are Christians here today. And then a final word to any non-Christian here today. So first for you here who are Christians, and I thank you all for being attentive.

I know it's early, as I said in the outset, it's going to be a shocking message to you at this early in the hour. When my time slot got changed I thought, oh Lord, this is going to be the first message they're going to hear today. It's going to be a strong one in that regard, but may the Lord use it. May the Lord use it, and again thank you for your attentiveness. So firstly for you Christians here, dear brother, dear sister, having heard the message for this morning, if in fact you're going to become a more effective evangelist for the Lord concerning what I've spoken about, I want to suggest three things very briefly for you to do.

The first is regularly meditate on the fear of God for unbelievers, the judgment seat of Christ, and the realities of hell for unbelievers. You want to become a better evangelist? Do this. Think about these things. Let your soul soak in them long and hard.

Read your Bibles. Read good books on the subject, but meditate upon these realities. Secondly, regularly memorize scripture. Scripture that talks about the subject so that your heart will be burdened with such things. So that You can say, as you're starting to get all sweaty and the heart's pumping as you've got to speak to this non-Christian at work or wherever it might be, the supermarket, etc., and these shall go away into everlasting punishment.

These people have got never-dying souls, and I'm often struck with that. If I go to New York City or I'm someplace in New England, I just stop and look and say, look at all these people. What if today was the day that we all died and were ushered into eternity? They would all have to give an account before God And I start thinking about some of those scriptures And they Will hear those words depart from me You curse it into everlasting fire And we need to be thinking like that not just oh, it's great I'm going to heaven holds well with me that wasn't Paul that wasn't Jesus that wasn't Peter That wasn't Jude who could say, and on some have compassion, making a distinction, but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garments spotted by the flesh. Meditate on such scriptures.

And thirdly, dear friends, not only meditate on those headings I gave you and memorize scripture, But thirdly, if you're going to be an evangelist for Christ in these ways, make much of the glory of the gospel of Christ. And I say this because it's against this backdrop of hell that the hope of the Gospel burns brightly. Don't just be a hellfire brimstone preacher. Be a gospel preacher. But you can't tell people the good news unless they know the bad news first.

And as I said in the outset, there's this grace, grace, grace theme that is constantly being preached in various pulpits. And we ought to preach the grace of God but I think we live in a hyper grace age where again if you speak about the wrath of God the judgment of God, hell And all those various aspects we've considered, people think, what planet is he from? Does he ever read anything else other than the Puritans? So may the Lord help us. May the Lord help us.

Finally then a word to any non-Christian here today. I don't know most of you, so I don't know who's truly saved or not saved. So what can I say to you my dear friend this morning? Except knowing the terror of the Lord I must persuade you to repent of your sins once for all and to go to Christ by faith that you might be saved. Dear ones, I call you this day to beg God to show you that there is a heaven to be gained and a hell to be avoided.

Plead with God. Oh God, open my eyes. There is a heaven to be gained and a hell to be avoided. That some of you here might go to hell on the final day because you continue and your impenitence breaks my heart. But I'll tell you something, I'll stand before God with clean hands.

For as Paul said there in Acts chapter 20, I've got a good conscience. I am clean of the blood of all men because I did not cease to warn them. So I warn you this morning, my dear friend, Listen, God's brought you to this conference. Some of the children, again, were here because Mommy and Daddy wanted us to come. We didn't really have a choice.

But you know, God ordained that your parents would be saved and that you would be born in a Christian home and that you would be here this morning to hear this message. My dear, unsaved friend, repent now. Turn from your sins this morning. Go to Jesus as a hell-deserving sinner and say, Oh Lord, I've heard the free offer of the gospel, that you came into the world sinners to save. You represented sinners by your sinless life and then you gave that sinless life to be a sacrifice for our sins upon Calvary's cross.

You took the sins of your people upon yourself and you bore the wrath of God and their hell all upon yourself once for all time. And at the time the Calvary event was all done, you said, it is finished. I have accomplished the redemption of every sinner who trusts in my work alone for salvation. Friend, today is the day to trust in what Christ has done for sinners like you. 2000 years ago, Jesus came into the world sinners to save and on the cross of Calvary, he saved an innumerable host of sinners.

Every sinner who in time, space, history would turn from their sins and believe upon him alone for life and salvation. Might today be the day of your salvation. Let's pray. Our Father, we're thankful for the topic of this conference and what it means for us, O God, but we're thankful that this morning we could think about what it means for the lost and how it should motivate us to talk to them, oh God, we pray that the fear of God concerning the ungodly would indeed move us to speak, that knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we would persuade men, we would convince them with holy scripture that they are lost and they need the Savior, that we would plead with them that there is a heaven to be gained and a hell to be avoided. Oh God give us grace we pray we feel ourselves so weak for the mandate to go But use what we've considered today as one means to that blessed end.

And we pray these things in Jesus' holy name. Amen. For more messages, articles and videos on the subject of conforming the Church and the Family to the Word of God and for more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches where you can search our online network to find family integrated churches in your area, log on to our website ncfic.org. O-R-G.