Sixty Seconds to Hell

I read a book once that startled me. It was written by a medical doctor. In fact, he was a cardiologist and he wrote a book called To Hell and Back and in this book he related that he had long been an atheist until he witnessed some patients of his and their near-death experiences where they died on the operating table and came back and they saw visions of hell and its horrors.

Their eyes would dilate, their faces would contort into hideous grimaces as they shrieked about their visions of hell as they came back to life. This so disturbed the atheistic doctor that he began to read his bible and to read what the bible had to say about hell and in the process he found Christ and became a Christian. His name was Maurice Rawlings and his book To Hell and Back is a startling account of visions of hell and its agonies.

It's been estimated friends that every 60 seconds 88 persons die apart from Christ and drop into hell. My message this evening friends is entitled 60 seconds to hell and in this message I will speak on the doctrine of hell and its terrors and give you warning not to go to that place of eternal imprisonment called hell. Jesus spoke on hell often.

He called it a place of outer darkness, a place of wailing and gnashing of teeth, where the worm dieth not. Each of those descriptions about Jesus Christ are warnings in themselves friends to avoid going to hell. Hell is dark.

There is no sunlight there. It's a place of great darkness. It's a place of torment.

The cries of the damned are never ceasing. Their shrieks break through the flashing flames of that region of hell. Jesus spoke of their torments, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Wailing speaks of great loss. When I was a little boy I went to my Italian grandfather's funeral. This was in the 1960s and as I entered that funeral home I heard the most ungodly shouts and screams and cries that had stopped me dead in my tracks.

My mother made me go into that room of wailing. It was an old-fashioned wake and there sat my grandfather's family and they were all wailing at the top of their lungs and shrieking during this funeral wake. It was upsetting to me to hear those cries and screams as the corpse lay before them.

It gave me a glimpse of what hell is really like. It's a place of never-ending wailing. Wailing speaks of great loss and grief and gnashing of teeth signifies great anger and regret.

The tortured souls in hell are angry. They regret that they are there. They are some tormented souls in hell right now, friend, who are there because some evangelist or some pastor gave them bad advice on what salvation was.

These false shepherds fed them a false gospel and gave them a false security and now their victims are in hell and these tortured souls cry out. They cry out that evangelist's name as a cuss word for all eternity. Every 60 seconds dozens of people die and descend into that terrible region called hell.

Listen, friend, you may be 60 seconds from hell yourself. There are many baptized church members in hell right this instant, friends. Perhaps some of them were your friends and family, but they are gone now.

They're in agony now. It's a place where the worm dieth not. That means their suffering is unending.

When a person is sick unto death and they suffer before they die, when they die their physical suffering in this world is over. But if that person dies in their sins then their suffering only begins when they die for they enter a prison house of suffering for an endless eternity. Their pain and anguish will only increase over time as they realize they're shut up in that terrible region of outer darkness called hell.

Let me relate a story to you as told by the evangelist Mordecai Ham. It was Billy Graham who was saved under the preaching of Mordecai Ham. When Ham was a young evangelist he had an encounter with hell that so shook him he never forgot it and it made him a better preacher because of it.

Let me relate his story to you now friends. Here is this story from Mordecai Ham. God caused me to witness the horrible death of one eternally lost.

Two sisters were living in a log hut near the church. Both were just young girls and were dying with tuberculosis. I was to visit them on a certain day.

The mother of those two girls met me at the door of the little log cabin and begged me to hasten in and do something. Lulu is dying the mother sobbed. I hurried to the girl's bedside and tried to talk to her about her need of salvation.

I played with her for a long time but to no avail. She refused to hearken. Then she closed her eyes in death.

I called to her Lulu how is it? A voice came back not the voice of one living but that of one who was in another world. It was a voice that came up from the depths without any sign of movement of the dead girl's lips or throat muscles. A voice that I've heard only once in my life and that I've never been able to forget.

The voice of Lulu moaned lost lost oh oh so dark so dark lost. Listen friends hell is real God is a God who must punish sin. Now I know some of you don't believe in that kind of God today friends.

Your God wouldn't send anybody to hell but listen to me dear one. The God of the Bible would. God is holy and he hates sin.

God is a God who will and must punish sin. As the days of Noah were filled with violence the days of Sodom were filled with filthiness. God spared not the wicked world in Noah's day but drowned the world with a flood.

Save Noah's family. God rained fire down upon wicked Sodom and destroyed the wicked cities of the plains. In the days of Lot because the cry of their sins came up to heaven.

It was a sudden destruction which took the Sodomites by surprise. In Luke 17 and verse 28 we read they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built until judgment overtook them. That is God's judgment friend.

God is a God who must punish sin. Hell is the prison created by God to hold sinners who die in their sins. My Bible declares the soul that sinneth it shall die.

All unbelieving sinners are in danger of hellfire and they must be awakened out of their carnal security. Listen friend every 60 seconds someone dies and drops into hell. Do me a favor will you? Look at your watch right now.

Notice the sweeping second hand as it travels in a circle on your watch. Look at it now. Go ahead.

Look at it now friend. Look at that second hand. Move in that circle.

Time is a fleeting thing. A moment lost it can never be regained. Time is a precious commodity friend that once it is gone it is forever gone.

Look at your watch friend. Look at that second hand as it ticks, as it ticks across the face of your watch. See those seconds as they expire as you watch them.

Since I've asked you to look at your watch 60 seconds has expired and just in these last 60 seconds dozens of poor souls have died and dropped down into the dark regions of hell. They close their eyes on this earth and open their eyes in hellfire. Let me ask you friend.

Do you like your freedom? Do you like to be able to eat when you want to and go outside and have a walk in the fresh air? Feel the sunlight upon you? Do you have a favorite place you like to go? A favorite thing you like to do? If you are an unsaved individual and if you were suddenly removed from this world right now you'd never again have any freedom. You would be locked up in a prison against your will with no one to come to your rescue. No one can open the door of that prison for it's sealed from the outside.

Just like the poor inhabitants of Noah's day tried to gain entry into the ark when the rain began to fall in torrents. They could not find a doorknob because it was locked and secured from the inside. God shut the door of the ark and preserved Noah and his family and God shuts the gates of hell and locks them with a key that only hangs from his key chain and no one, I repeat no one, ever gets out of hell.

There's no exit doors in hell friend. Once you're shut up in there you are locked up in there forever. You've lost your freedom.

You won't ever see the sunlight again. Imagine the darkness that Mordecai Ham spoke about when the disembodied voice of that dead girl Lulu came up from hell. So dark, so dark.

It is dark in hell friend. So dark you can't even see your hand in front of your face except for the momentary flashes of fire. You're not safe in hell either friend.

Here on earth there is a police force and there are laws that are enforced that protect your rights in person. But in hell there are occupants there who were serial killers, rapists, sexual perverts, sociopaths. They're there from every generation since mankind has appeared on the earth.

There are murderers in hell from the days of the Caesars. The wicked and perverted Roman emperors are there. Hitler is there.

The dregs of society in each generation. Every sociopath that roamed the streets in the days of Noah roams the regions of hell to share their misery and torments one another. Every sodomite that was in Sodom and Gomorrah is in hell friend seeking their victims.

Once in hell no one will stop one of these evil entities if they decide to attack you. The sweat of demons will brush up against you in hell. You can't do nothing about it.

You will be their victim. The torments in hell are unimaginable to us here on earth. But if I could walk you to the hell and open it and let you peer down into that abyss, what you saw would make your hair turn white with fear.

You'd be staying awake tonight friend. And every 60 seconds another 88 people die and populate that terrible region of torment called hell. Hell's a very crowded place friend.

Do the math. Every hour over 5,000 souls enter hell. Every day it adds up to over 125,000 souls perishing into that place of burning each week.

That means another 800,000 souls enter the regions of hell and are shut up in there with the already existing crowd of prisoners. Let a month go by and another three and a half million people are cast into hell and its fires. In a year's time that adds up to over 40 million wretched sinners being shut up in that crowded prison of hell where all they smell is rotten flesh and burning sulfur.

All the hear are the cries of the damned. If you die and go to hell you'll be afflicted both by fire and its torments and by the cries of your fellow damned sinners. Their smell will suffocate you.

Their nasty stature, their burning flesh will make you want to vomit and retch. The horrible spectacle which your eyes will behold will revolt you as you see tortured souls in agony and pain. And there you are with them sharing in their agony and suffering and endless torments.

It's a noisy place. It's a pit of noise. If you were to go to every hospital in town tonight friends and take every patient there off their pain medication and not give it to them in a few hours time their screams and cries would keep your town up tonight.

I repeat hell is a pit of noise. It's a noisy, noisy place. There's no party going on in hell tonight friends.

No matter what the folks in Hollywood tell you your party days end in this world and your suffering begins in the next world. If you die apart from Jesus Christ, if you die in your sins, if you die an unsaved individual, lost like Lulu, lost, lost, eternally lost forever, listen to the words of Christ Jesus as found in Mark's gospel in chapter 9 and verses 47 and 48. And if thine eye offend thee pluck it out it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire where the worm doth not and the fire is not quenched.

Jesus said if you want to stay out of hell friend then you must repent of your sins. Jesus declared except you repent ye shall all likewise perish. In the New Testament we find the conditions to enter in heaven's portals of peace and bliss that one must exercise repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ.

But most folks don't want to give up their sins. They want to join the church and be baptized and get a hope of heaven but hang on to their sins. But that's nothing but a false hope friends.

If you die unrepentant, if you die in your sins, heaven will be shut to you and hell will be open to you. Your sins must be washed in the precious blood of the lamb. You must get under the blood.

You need a remedy for sin friend and that remedy is no other than the Lord Jesus Christ. He and he alone is the pardon for sin. When Christ Jesus was nailed to that bloody cross on Calvary's hill it was a declaration from God on high because the very sight of Christ on that bloody cross made a statement that has reached down through the centuries and that statement is God must punish sin.

Every stroke of the hammer which nailed Jesus to that cross declared God must punish sin. God must punish sin. God must punish sin.

You must turn from your sins and turn to God friend. Repent and turn from your evil ways or your iniquities be your ruin for God's judgment will fall suddenly upon you and surprise you. You may be just 60 seconds from hell right now.

I was talking to a man in the hallway. He was a young man and in good health just a few months ago. He went to bed that night.

He woke up early in the morning with some chest pain, took two steps out of bed and dropped dead to the floor. A sudden death could remove you friend. You may be 60 seconds from hell right this instant.

Seek the remedy found in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen friend, I know I am a sinner and I need a substitute for sin in the person of Jesus Christ and so do you friend. So do you.

You may think you're not bad enough to go to hell but good enough to go to heaven. Listen friend, good people don't go to heaven. Only forgiven people get to go there.

Forgiven by the blood of Christ Jesus. Only he can break the power of sin and deliver you from hell's torments. Go to God now friend and seek him.

Seek him in earnestness and humility. Ask him for the grace of repentance and to give you saving faith. Shut yourself up to God friend.

It's only he who can keep you out of hell. Salvation comes from his hands. Your sins need pardon friend.

You're nothing but a rebel against God. A rebel against the sovereign. Get under the blood of Christ.

Go to him now before it's too late. You can't be accepted by God on your good character or your good works. Only the blood of Christ can wash away your sins.

I will leave you with an opportunity to respond to God as you hear his word telling you of what is required of you. 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 for he will abundantly pardon.