You will recall that the last several Sundays I have been preaching to our people and to all who come on some very important subjects for the believer. How to be a success in life, how to not just almost make it, but to make it. How to deal with death and life -serious problems, how one is able to forgive and experience forgiveness. First Baptist Church, beginning a few Sundays from now, you will notice by your bulletin inserts, which I do hope that you will keep, I am beginning a book -by -book, Sunday morning night and Wednesday night series study through the summer months of the Old Testament, and then as Jesus carries, about a 12 -year program of word -by -word and verse -by -verse study through the New Testament. Wednesday night, as of this Wednesday night, as you will notice, is going to be very important in First Baptist Church. Today's series will continue indefinitely, morning, night, and Wednesday. It is of imperative importance that you are here and are in on the consistency of the entire preaching program. So I will be locked in, so to speak, on my messages directed by the Spirit of God for a long time to come. With that in mind, during these interim three weeks, it occurred to me that there are some things that I must say to you, some subjects we must cover, and I want you to see those things that are planned, as some of the very fundamentals of the faith will be dealt with. Today, two weeks from tonight, the 30th, I am preaching what I consider to be the most important message I shall ever bring from this pulpit. It's called Ten Ways to be Saved, the sermon you probably didn't ever expect to hear me preach. Now, I haven't changed my theology, and I'm not going to give you any hints about it, but that Sunday morning when I preach on Five Ways to Have a Happy Hurricane, and Sunday night, Ten Ways to be Saved, I guarantee you will be one of the red -letter days in our church. Mark it on your calendar. Don't miss it. It will be something that will be one of the most important things I think you will ever hear. If you don't come to First Baptist Church on Sunday night, you miss at least two -thirds of the fun. We just have a great time on Sunday evening, worshiping and serving and loving our Lord. Tonight's message is entitled, and I know that you will be here, Who's Who in Heaven? And this morning, I am preaching on the subject, Who's Who in Hell? There is a book in America called, Who's Who in America? It is a blue book of successful people. It gives with startling brevity the accounts of the successes of the great souls of this land. The purpose of my message is to give a bare -faced account of the scriptural condition now, says the Word of God, and through eternity, of a group of people who make up that blue book of infamy. Those whose lives experienced and touched the greatness of opportunity and subjected themselves to the peril of rejection, because opportunity scorned is paradise lost, and are the lost now and eternally in hell. And let there be no question that there is a hell. We live in a day in which people, under the guise of pseudo -intellectualism, spurn and scorn and ridicule the doctrine of eternal retribution. He is not doing you any favor who calls himself no hellfire brimstone preacher and laughs at those that preach and believe in hell, because he does not warn you of the whole counsel of God. He is no friend of yours who is a doctor that does not warn you about cancer if you have cancer and if it exists. He is a quack. He is a fool. He is a fraud. He is a phony. And he is a disgrace to the medical profession. And the preacher that does not preach, that does not warn men about the awful consequence of living in an eternal separation from God is a disgrace to the ministry of the Word of God. Three things I would say briefly to you today. Consider, first of all, the reality of hell. You say, preacher, do you really believe in hell? I believe in hell because I was prodded in college, because the seminary that I attended for a while taught me to believe in hell. I believe in hell because my denomination historically has taken their stand on the side of the Word of God, and it is in the Gospel record. I believe in hell because every great preacher, in my opinion, those that were great, that God mightily used, believed and preached in the reality of eternal retribution for sin. I believe in hell because of the fact that without question, society teaches there is a hell. Do we not separate the good from the bad, the lawbreaker, from those that obey the law? We have our jails, our penitentiaries, and surely we do not expect God to run the next world with less logic than we have run this one. Our God is going to separate as far from him, says the Bible, as the east from the west, those whose lives have lived in obstinate rebellion against the revealed will of God. I believe in hell because everything about reason and everything of my common sense suggests it to me. I cannot believe that there will be curfews in heaven. I cannot believe that there will be wars in heaven. I cannot believe that little children will not be saved on the street, and women have to run for their lives because attackers and muggers and arsons and rapers and murderers will all be free in hell. I simply cannot comprehend that. My own common sense suggests to me that a God of intelligence is going to separate the lawbreaker from the lawkeeper. Everything about it suggests to me that the reality of hell is anything but unthinkable. But I believe in hell more than any other reason because the kindest man that ever lived, he who never lied, he who was the very personification and incarnation of truth and said, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life, Jesus Christ himself said, and in hell, and told the story about a man that died and went to hell. In no parable is a proper name used, but Jesus said a real man named Lazarus went to heaven, and a real man named Divey went to hell in the same story. And either of two things is true this morning, Jesus Christ is a fraud and a liar, or there is a hell. And I choose to believe the veracity of the scripture and the revelation of the gospel account. And what of the record of hell? What kind of place is it going to be? Well, I know that all of us are thinking one thing. Is it a real fire? That I don't know. But I'll tell you something a whole lot better than that. I'm never going to find out. But I do know this. If God understanding that it was impossible for us to comprehend the awfulness of eternity without God, if he only uses a simile, if only a symbol is involved, because mind could not understand, I could not see, nor heart comprehend how awful lostness eternally really was. If fire is only a symbol of what it's like, God, man, you've made it worse. You haven't made it better. Separation. Remember that word. Hell is a place of separation, whatever and wherever it is. It is a place of separation from satisfaction. We find that the rich man who died and went to hell still had the same desires. He still was thirsty. He still felt pain. He still remembered. He had all of the mental faculties that he had here. And every longing and every aching and every hunger and need and every desire of man in this life was experienced in hell. But it was magnified ten billion fold. The libertine will still last. The liar will still long to be identified with that that is untruth. The alcoholic will still crave the drink. The dope addict will still crave narcotics. But there will be no satisfaction. It is a place of satisfaction from separation. If hell is anything, it is a place where there is an absolute cessation of that that is good and a perpetuation of that that is evil only intensified. We shall have a body in hell much more susceptible to pain than this. And in heaven we shall have a glorified body much more susceptible to joy and gladness than is this. For indeed we shall know as we are known. We shall be like him but we shall see him as he is. If heaven is anything it is a place where there is an absolute cessation to the contrary of everything bad and a continuation of everything good increased and quick and magnified and intensified a billionfold. It is a place of separation from satisfaction, a separation from desires. It is a place of separation from escape. There is no hell with doors. There is no hell with a second chance. The Bible speaks of no hell with escape. See, our Catholic friends are wrong, though I love them. They're dead wrong. There is no purgatory. There is no second chance. The Bible says that it is appointed unto man once to die, and after that, one judgment. And what man does with Christ in this life determines what God does with him in eternity. And what are those that have never heard? Is our God unfair? I shall deal at some length with that in the message tonight. It is a place of separation from escape, from opportunity, from satisfaction. But most of all, it is an experience, it is a state, it is a place, wherever and whatever it is, of separation from God. And that's what makes it bad. That's what man's problem is in this world. That's why the futility and the frustration of an erotic society blowing its mind of a schizophrenic generation that doesn't know what it wants. You know, our black friends and how I love them, many wonderful friends and members in this church. They have craved and sought for integration through these centuries. Now they have it and they want separation. Now they want their own black identity again. And I say simply to you that the black man doesn't know what he wants. Neither does the white man know what he wants, nor the red man, nor the yellow man. There is no sociological or psychological satisfaction until man is completely integrated into oneness, not with his fellow man, but with God. Man is made for God. He is made in the image of God. I care not whether he be black or white, rich or poor, learned or illiterate. Life from the cradle to the grave will be one constant channel -changing round of escape mechanism until man finds his fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Isn't it any wonder that Jesus Christ, that the Apostle Paul, who were sociologically the most un -misundersed and impoverished people that ever lived, were among the happiest, the most contented, because they had found that man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things he possesses. Life begins and continues and consummates in relationship with God. That's what life's all about. And the bewilderment, the frustration, the confusion, the war, the animosity, the problems of this world are because man is separated from God and he's trying to fulfill that separation with a thousand things except God. Oh, the frustration that man has here because he is lost will be intensified when through eternity he is separated from God. Now, God doesn't decide for you. You're a free moral agent. God makes you with the privilege of choice. You can choose either to serve Christ, to know God through Christ, or to reject him here. But what our God does is to merely abide by your decisions. You have chosen to follow Satan in this world and reject God. You've chosen to do your own thing and live a life. In absolute rejection and forbearance of the will of God, he merely lets you keep on following him and doing your own thing in eternity. Now, I have a little theory. It's about as good as anybody's, I suppose. And it is that hell is not in the middle of the earth, as many people think, but in some vast remote corner of eternity. Yea, indeed, it is eternity. It is faith. And I have four reasons for it. One is, the Bible says that man in his lost eternal state is separated from God, and hell is eternal separation from God. Now, listen closely. Hear me out. If our forgiven sins, says the word of God, are cast behind his back as far as the east is from the west, where is that? Then where are the unforgiven sins which God hates worth? Sin. Satan, Lucifer, Satan rebelled against God. The angels rebelled against God, and were banished from God's presence. And there is no union with God unless we are made nigh through the blood of Christ. But man in his sin is separated from God. And I submit to you that it is possible that in hell that man is perpetually more and more and more, farther and farther and farther separated from God. He has chosen his own direction in this life, and God allows him to follow that forever and ever. I believe it for an every reason. But the possibility exists. A body going through space has a problem with heat. Tremendous heat is radiated, and those nose cones must be touched on those missiles, and those heavenly bodies should be able to stand in tense heat. Could it be that the heat that he speaks of is that that is generated as the soul is flung through eternity, farther and farther into the ages and eons of eternity, never again to see God? The Bible says there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth as men are cast into outer darkness. Could it be that the outer darkness of the limitless expanses of an awful space are the outer darkness to which the Bible refers? The Bible tells us that man will be cast in hell into a bottomless pit. Why can't man fall and fall and fall and never stop falling except in outer space? What an awful spot it is. That God gave man the ability on this world for a perfect eternal union with God. That he separated himself willingly from God, lost that chance, and chose to be forever separated from God. And the soul of the damned takes its flight into eternity, never again to experience the light and love of him who gave his only begotten son. That whosoever believeth on him did not perish, but have everlasting life. And what are the roll call of hell? Who are the occupants thereof? There are so many of which the Bible speaks and so many of which experience reiterate the time forbearers, the possibility of mentioning them all to you. You will recall the story of the ten virgins, five wise and five foolish, ten young women, five possessed oil. And oil is always symbolic of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is the exclusive agency of redemption in the heart of man in this world. One that has not experienced redemptive grace by Christ's personality reproduced in him through the Holy Spirit is none of his. And five, had the Holy Spirit. They all appeared religious on the outside. They all had the vessel of salvation, but they lacked the oil thereof. There was the eternal experience, there was the eternal, external accruement of religion, but there was no oil on the inside. No Holy Spirit, no salvation, no new birth, no God in Christ indwelling the human heart. I call you to attention, you to mind this morning, that Jesus did not refer to harlots and discards and rebellious and rejects. These five young women that were in hell, with a very epitome of society, the cream of the crop, five beautifully manicured, sweet, precious, polite, lovely young ladies. But all of their goodness, socially, did not create anything in them that gendered unto life. You young people, as you go from this service today and go home to an afternoon of happiness and gaiety and on through a week, remember that in your happiness there are young women, five at least of them that are in hell, because they were good, but they had never experienced great. There's at least one bottomland farmer in hell. Red Oklahoma dirt would not grow what they talked about. The riches and the wealth of the rich farmer, the poor fool that poured out on his barns and built bigger ones and had more and more, perhaps from a delta area somewhere, rich and fertile. God had given him that wealth. God had given him that possession. God had entrusted into him all of that power. but instead of using it to glorify God, the old healthy spirit never regenerated, never converted by saving faith in the living Christ. So lived in obstinance of the will of God and self -centeredness that it tore down its barns and built bigger ones and thought only of himself. The death angel came one night and said, thou fool, this night is thy soul required of thee, and he is in hell. There is a rich man in hell of which Jesus spoke in Luke 16. He was rich, he was religious, he was good, he was well -ordered and well -loved. He was not a bad man, for riches do not make one bad any more than poverty. It's a contributing factor to one's virtue. He was lost because he had everything except the main thing. He missed Jesus Christ. The fallen angels will be in hell. Listen to the gospel record in the book of Jude. The angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he has reserved an everlasting change of darkness under the day of judgment. You will recall, of course, how our Lord Jesus confronted with Lucifer for the control of heaven, was banished from heaven. And it appears that a third of the heavenly host sided with them and were banished from heaven. The Bible says they are reserved against judgment, changed in eternal, changed in eternal darkness in hell. The angels will be there. The Bible tells us something else. There's going to be at least one preacher in hell. The beast was taken, and with him the false prophets that wrought miracles before him. And men that had received the mark of the beast, and men that had worshipped his image, they both were cast alive into the lake of fire, burning with fire and brimstone. Hear me now. Everything our Lord Jesus Christ has done, Satan has counterfeited. There is a counterfeit church. There is a counterfeit trinity. There is a counterfeit plan of salvation. There is a counterfeit plan for the rule of the world. There is a counterfeit plan of eschatological events. Everything God does, Satan's blueprints and counterfeits. And Satan has his preachers by the untold hundreds. That that does not confess that Christ is born of a virgin, that believes the efficacy of the blood, the resurrection of the devil. I'd do anything in this world before I'd go to a church and belong to a church. This preacher did not believe in the virgin birth of Christ and the efficacy of the blood and the resurrection and salvation by the grace of God in this book we call God's blessed work. Think of it. People, the up and out, the elite, the social, all pastors, Sunday after Sunday, what a grand rosewater sermon, how you tickled our ears, how you comforted us, how you spoke of positive things, how sweet you were and how important it is to be positive, but you never paused to warn us the way of the cross leads home and the wicked shall be turned into hell. You hypocrite, you here in hell. Oh, what an awful day. There will be at least one preacher in hell. Satan will be in hell. The Bible tells us in Revelation 20 verse 10, the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are and to be tormented day and night forever and ever and that means forever and ever and ever endlessly. Satan in hell. And that just tickles the daylights out of me. You say, preacher, what about the liquor election? I know the Chamber of Commerce wants to bring more folks here. That's good. Let's get more drugs and let's get more prostitutes and let's have more wrecks. Let's run over more of our kids. Let's have more problems. Let's create more hell. Let's fill more jails. Have to employ more police to pick up the pieces. I'll tell you one reason I'm against it is because the liquor crowd's for it and they're not for anything that they know will not increase sales. If they know it'll decrease liquor consumption, they'd be pushing the vote against it. Now you can put that down. Ladies and gentlemen, you might think that a preacher is a fanatic on a little drink now and then. If you had to go to the psycho war, you had to go to the hospital where kids have been run over by brunt and sit year after year day after day in that office where alcohol is torn apart homes and you had to pick up what it does if you saw the drunks blurting and staggering in their own vomit off of the streets of you sit in this office every day you'd hate it we see what it does the agony of human despair because Satan who was behind everything bad and evil and wrong every broken heart every broken family every broken body every pain listen God never made anything imperfect everything he creates and created was absolute perfection whether it is imperfection and suffering and pain it is the result somewhere of Satan's effectiveness work selfishness and pride all that causes men to ignore their brother and not to care is the result of the devil and I'll tell you he's going to get his due and I've got no mercy on that Satan will be in hell and the last word is this Revelation 21 8 says oh well the fearful and the unbelieving and the abominable and the murderer and the whoremonger the sorcerer the idolater all liars shall have part in the lake and which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death have you ever told a lie I have but I'm not going to hell there's three categories here the unbeliever the fearful and the out and out sinner this does not merely mean a man who has told a lie or committed a sin but it categorizes those the totality of whose being is set toward a tendency of that kind of life it means the man who's totalized is set in sin against God doesn't mean a man who fails and commits a sin and goes back to God if there's one thing in this world we need to understand it is the man whose life is basically a life of sin and indifference and opposition to God has no new nature what are we talking about a convert from sin while we live in sin an obvious glaring contradiction the out and out sinner not because he has committed a sin but because his life gives evidence of the fact that there has been no changing of that life and it is going against God rather than to death then there is the fearful that man that woman he said what do my neighbor think what do my wife say what do the boys at the office think what do the kids at school what do the gang of the fraternity of the sorority of the club I belong to what about my social set what about my friends more people will be in hell because they're afraid of what people thought that you can imagine and then there is the unbeliever for that alone is the ultimate sin what sin makes what crime what wrong what deed makes a drowning man in in in a close grasp to a a piece of life saving equipment drown the fact that he yells and hates and curses and rejects the banks no the fact that he doesn't do anything he just doesn't reach out and take hold of it it is in the last analysis of sin of unbelief the crime of failing to reach out and take hold of the hand of the man that died to save you unbelief unbelief gypsy smith was a great preacher he said when they were traveling along in their little gypsy caravan one day a bridge fell in he said the horses and the chariots and the people were all caught in the swirling tide seven gypsies drowned one strong young man dove in pulled his mother attempted to pull his mother to safety but she panicked went out of her mind and she fought and kicked and rejected him he let her down he brought her up again and she fought him and rebelled against him again and again he could not save her though he was strong though he cried though he was so close so he could have he was swept away to her death and at a burial of an open in an open grave where seven gypsy bodies lay three days later the funeral he slipped into the grave and be doing the cheeks of that dead woman with his kisses proud old mama whited gelatin i could have saved i don't believe