Felix Went to Hell Will You

The underground church in China is closed to outside preachers. Chinese believers are very careful in preserving their secrecy and gathering for worship so not to be arrested by the communist government. They meet in barns late at night, arrive on bicycles one by one, and then hide them in the bushes.

They try not to travel in groups to avoid bringing attention to themselves. Chinese believers know the cost of following a crucified savior as they face constant persecution and imprisonment for their faith in Christ Jesus. Subsequently, they count the cost before becoming a Christian to take up their cross to follow Jesus.

Because of all these things, the underground church will seldom host an outside preacher from another country because the risks of discovery are just too great. But I know of an instance where an American pastor was allowed to preach in an underground church in China. The Chinese love to hear preaching and will listen to it for hours, paying close attention and taking many notes.

Well, this American pastor came prepared and he preached for three hours, pausing every hour to have a time for corporate prayer. At the end of his three-hour session, the group of Chinese believers began to sing a song in English, and it went like this. We don't listen to sermons.

We don't listen to sermons. We don't listen to sermons. The American pastor thought to himself, they don't listen to sermons.

I've been preaching for three hours. But then the Chinese congregation sang the next stanza. We don't listen to sermons.

We live the sermons. We live the sermons. Some of you here today enjoy listening to gospel messages and you even take delight in hearing good preaching.

But as there is a vast chasm between heaven and hell, there's a vast difference from just hearing sermons and living them. The demands of the gospel must be lived out in a person's life. All the rights and claims that Christ has on a person must be lived out in the life of a believer.

If you have no life of denial, no cross to carry in a life of discipleship, there may be good reason to examine whether one is saved or lost, regardless of church membership. The gospel is a call to come to Christ, to give up this world and the love of it, to live a life of self-denial, to promote the spread of gospel, to be consumed with things of eternity, and to live a crucified life as you follow a crucified Savior. I fear many of us are yet unsaved.

We want half of Christ. We gladly take Jesus, so long as we don't have to take him as Lord. We want to have a comfortable life as a believer, so long as it doesn't cost us anything.

We want selfishly two things regarding religion. We want heaven on our terms, and we want to sit and rule on the throne of our life. We want the benefits of heaven, but we cry with the crowd.

We will not have this man to reign over us. Well, that's my introduction, friends. The title of my message today is Felix Went to Hell, Will You? My text today is found in the book of Acts.

You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We will be in chapter 24 and in verses 24 through 25. It is the story of the apostle Paul, who'd been arrested for his faith and testimony in Christ Jesus, and he is appealing his case once again before Felix the governor.

Let me read us a striking passage at this time. Here now is the word of God, and may the Spirit of the Lord be pleased to attend the reading of his holy word. And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul and heard him concerning the faith in Christ.

Let me pause here, friends. Paul typically would relate the story of his conversion and in the process share the gospel of Christ Jesus as he before councils. Here is Felix the governor.

It is Paul's second hearing before Felix. This official knows all about Paul and the trouble he has caused, all the riots, all the turmoil, all the tumult and unrest in the city. Paul stands before him.

He warns him of Christ. He warns him of the terrors of judgment. Felix lives in Caesarea, where Cornelius was a Roman centurion and a Christian.

Felix is somewhat familiar with the way of the Christian religion, and he's curious to hear Paul once more. And as Paul preached the gospel of the Son of God to Felix, this governor comes under conviction of sin. He becomes alarmed under Paul's preaching, but he won't come to Christ.

Look at the next verse. And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled and answered, Go thy way, for this time, when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee. Felix shakes off the terror of his conviction, like so many of us do.

Felix will not come to Christ like so many of us will not come to Christ, at least not savingly. We don't mind walking an aisle or repeating a prayer, and we don't mind even joining the church, but we won't come to Christ to get saved from hell's fire. We'd rather sit upon a false foundation that is comfortable, even though the wood planks beneath us moan and creak with every move we make, and are ready to break any minute to have us drop down into the bottomless pit of outer darkness of hell.

Felix would not come to Christ. Felix died in his sins and dropped down to hell's torments. Will you? Why live your life beneath the false robe of a religious profession, whereby you carry well at church among your friends, yet Christ does not know you? You manage to slip through the front door of the church and join it, but you've never come under Holy Spirit conviction of sin, never have repented it, turned from your sins, and you never got to Christ, who can save you.

He is hidden in the bosom of the Father, and you have never received a revealed Christ. You think you're good enough, as you are, to pass mustard and to get into heaven, and you have a long track record of service to back up your religion, but you've never been lost in a need of a Savior. You never have come to Christ.

Why won't you come? You have all the power to come. You have all the natural power to come to Christ, to repent and be saved. There are millions of souls in hell at this hour who are there because they would not repent, Christ declared plainly, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish.

That means to perish in hell and its horrors, but you won't repent and come to Christ. God does not require any unreasonable thing. To repent and believe and to obey God is very reasonable.

It is unreasonable that you should love God, who created you and gave you life. Listen, friend, God is not a monster or an ogre, but a perfect being with a perfect character. There are no black marks on God's character.

You are to love him with all your heart, but there lies the problem, your heart. Why won't you love God and feel sorrow for sin? Why not come out from the world and throw down your weapons of rebellion and come to Christ and surrender? It is better to love God and to follow Christ than to love your sins and follow Satan. God does not require anything hard or unreasonable to you.

It's better to obey the commands of God than to break them. Surely you haven't come to Christ because you were ignorant of him. You know, he came to earth to do good, to heal the sick, to give sight to the blind, to make the lame to leap and the deaf to hear.

He fed the hungry and raised the dead. But man said, away with him, crucify him. He was nailed to a ignoble cross and there paid the penalty of sin, becoming sin for us and bearing the curse.

He took the wrath of God upon him, thus fulfilling the requirements of the law and reconciling man back to God that whosoever will come to him and believe on him will have pardon from sin and eternal life. It's not ignorance that keeps you from coming to Christ. Why have you not done it already? Jesus declared, I am the way, the truth and the life.

No man cometh to the father but by me. Then why won't you come, friend, and repent and believe? You have been instructed in your duty that God requires of all men everywhere to repent and that it is appointed unto man wants to die and after that the judgment. God is a God who must punish sin.

God declares, the soul that sinneth, it shall die. That there is a hell is for sure, for Jesus spoke of it often, a place of outer darkness where the warm dieth not, a place of torment and flames. Who can dwell with everlasting burnance where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth? You have been warned right now.

Why won't you come to Christ? Life is both short and uncertain. For all you know, your soul could be required of you tonight. I said hello to a friend in the hallway a few years ago.

He was a young man in his early forties and in the middle of the night he awoke suddenly, took two steps out of bed and dropped dead to the floor. He had no idea that his last day on earth was that day and he would soon be thrust into another region altogether, one full of terror and unrest and regret, for he died an unsaved man. He'd been witnessed too often.

He'd heard the call to come to Christ, but he would not come to Christ. How about you, friend? Why won't you come? You have time to come for. You still have breath in your body.

You have the power to come. All the natural power within you is there for you to come to Christ. Eternal life and eternal death are set before you.

Do you not tremble as Felix under conviction? The soul is immortal. You will one day die and your soul will go to the God who gave it to be in heaven with him or in hell and its torments. Why then won't you come to Christ? You must get to Christ to get under his blood for forgiveness of sin.

The people laughed at Noah as his hammer built the ark. Every stroke, every pounding sound of that hammer was a sermon to repent and turn to God. But they mocked.

They made fun of Noah. And when the rain began to fall in torrents and God closed the door of the ark with Noah's family safe inside, the people outside the ark drowned in the rising waters and their bodies floated like flotsam as their souls went down to hell. God's wrath to be poured out for sin.

If you die in your sins, surely you will wake up in hell's flames and misery. Come to Christ, friend. You cannot say you have not been warned.

I'll see you at the judgment and I'll stand there as a witness that you were indeed warned by a faithful gospel preacher. If the Lord would allow me to walk you over to the brink of eternity right now to the very pit of hell and to lift the lid on it just long enough for you to listen to the shrieks and screams of the damned, it would keep you awake tonight. And if you went to every hospital in your city and took every patient off his pain medication, why, their collective screams would keep your town awake tonight.

Open your eyes, friend, and look down into hell and see if you don't already have one foot in there. Why won't you come to Christ? Salvation is freely offered. The gospel calls are given.

The spirit and the bride say come. The reason why you have yet to come to Christ is not because salvation has not been freely offered. God's mercy is big enough for the biggest sinner.

We live in a day of mercy. Now is the appointed time. But God's spirit will not always strive with man.

Reject him enough, delay enough, and the door of mercy will close on your head. I don't like to say it, friend, but God's word is sure that the stiff neck will be destroyed. He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.

The sons-in-law of Lot were warned, Up, get ye out of this place, for the Lord will destroy the city. But Lot seemed as one that mocked. They just got a big laugh out of religion, until the city was all in flames, and their skin was burned right off them, as buildings fell down upon them, as well as the wicked inhabitants of Sodom.

I say to you, friend, Up, get ye out, and come to Christ while you can. But you won't come yet. You delay.

One foot in the ground. But why won't you come? It's not because you cannot, but because you will not. That's the stake in the ground.

There is a rotten spot in your life that you won't give to God. It keeps you from coming to Christ and crowning him king. If a bleeding Savior has no charms for you, if you resist the striving of the Holy Spirit, if you trample underfoot the Son of God, and if you won't heed the thunderings of the Almighty, and come to the crucified Christ who died for sin, then a day will come when the sunshine of your morning will be turned to black darkness of eternal night.

When your body is laid into a soundless grave, then all will be too late to come to Christ. Hell will be your portion, misery your best companion. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found.

Call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God free will abundantly pardon. Let us pray.