Josh Broward
October 15, 2006
AC/DC
Highway To Hell (1979)
Living easy, living free
Season ticket on a one-way ride
Asking nothing, leave me be
Taking everything in my stride
Don't need reason, don't need rhyme
Ain't nothing I would rather do
Going down, party time
My friends are going to be there too
I'm on the highway to hell
No stop signs, speed limit
Nobody's going to slow me down
Like a wheel, going to spin it
Nobody's going to mess me round
Hey Satan, paying my dues
Playing in a rocking band
Hey Momma, look at me
I'm on my way to the promised land
I'm on the highway to hell
(Don't stop me)
And I'm going down, all the way down
I'm on the highway to hell
That was AC/DC’s famous song: “Highway to Hell.” Rolling Stone Magazine included this as one of the 500 greatest songs of all time. The thing I hate about this song that is it sounds so good. The tune is so catchy, I found myself wanting to sing along when I was listening to it for this sermon: “I’m on the highway to hell!” But if you really listen to the words, they don’t sound so bad. “I’m on the highway to hell. … Ain’t nothing I would rather do. Going down, party time. My friends are going to be there, too. … I’m on my way to the promised land. … I’m on the highway to hell.” They make going to hell sound like fun.
Just six months after “Highway to Hell” hit #17 on the music charts, the band’s lead singer, Bon Scott, was found dead in his friend’s car.1 I guess the highway to hell was a little shorter than he expected.
But what about hell? Do you believe in hell?
One survey on www.beliefnet.com asked people these questions:
Do you believe in hell? (yes: 76%, no: 13%, I don’t know: 8%)
What are the chances that you might go to hell? (likely: 4%, unlikely: 36%, not a chance: 36%, I don’t know: 24%)
Do you know someone you think might go to hell? (yes: 56%, no: 44%)2
Basically, most people said, “I’m not going to hell, but that guy definitely is.”
A survey in the USA found that 75% of Americans believe in heaven, but only 25% believe in hell. 3 Apparently, we believe what we want to believe: “Heaven is good, so I believe in it. Hell sounds bad and scary, so I don’t believe in it.”
Do you believe in hell? I don’t like hell, and I don’t like talking about hell. But I do believe in hell. Jesus often talked about hell in his stories. No wonder the people killed him!
We are studying the book of Revelation. Hell is part of the end time picture that John describes. This week we are reading three chapters (14-16).
Let’s start with the bad news: Hell and judgment. Unlike, AC/DC’s song, the Bible’s picture of hell doesn’t sound fun. In fact, it sounds terrible and terrifying.
At the end of chapter 14 two groups of people face judgment: God’s people (who did not give into the Beast) and everyone else (who did life the Beast’s way). All of the people who got drunk on the Beast’s wine now have to drink the wine of God’s wrath. They have to drink it full strength, undiluted, and it does not taste good!
There are two groups of people: God’s people (the wheat) and people who reject God (the grapes). An angel gathers up all of the grapes and throws them into “the great winepress of God’s wrath” (14:19).4 In the winepress, the people are crushed like grapes, and their blood flows out in a huge river. The picture is ugly and bloody. God or his angels are walking on people and crushing them like grapes in a huge bowl. Remember, this is not a literal picture. There is no physical winepress where people will be crushed. But this is a picture of the horror of hell. I don’t want to be on that highway!
As if things couldn’t get any worse, John gives us another picture earlier in chapter 14: The people who live like the Beast “will be tormented with burning sulfur … and the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image or for anyone who receives the mark of his name” (14:10-11). This highway gets worse and worse.
Many people wonder what hell is like. Most Christian pastors say that hell is the complete absence of God, eternal life completely removed from God. But that never made sense to me. God is the source of life. God is the source of all existence. Nothing can continue to exist outside of God.
This week I read something that makes more sense to me. An old American preacher named Jonathan Edwards said that after we die, we go straight “into the immediate presence of God. God will be the hell of one and the heaven of the other.”5
If we have accepted God’s love through Christ, that love changes us. We are clean and pure, wearing the white robes of the Lamb, and being with God is like sweet music in our souls. But if we have rejected God’s love, that rejection also changes us. We are caught in our sin, “naked and ashamed” before a holy God (16:15), and we spend eternity suffering in the presence of his holiness. It is not so much that God punishes us. It is just that without Christ’s clean robes, we cannot bear the burning light of God’s holiness.
We will be with God forever. There are only two choices: blazing, joy-filled love or burning shame. I really don’t like this highway to hell.
But there is another option. There is another road, another way. In our text, John also gives us a picture of heaven. At the beginning of chapter 14, John shows us the 144,000 (representing all of God’s people), and they are with God in heaven. They have lived life God’s way. They did not commit spiritual adultery by getting in bed with the Beast. They “have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (7:14). Thanks to Jesus’ death on the cross, their sins are washed away. Jesus “redeemed” or “purchased” them out of the world (14:3-4).
For this group of people, God’s presence creates joy and more joy in their hearts. They burst out in song, singing louder than a great waterfall. They play harps and sing a beautiful song of joy: “Great and marvelous are your actions, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations. Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous deeds have been revealed” (15:3-4).
Wait a minute. Haven’t we heard that before? Doesn’t this sound like our Old Testament lesson from Exodus? After God led his people out of Egypt, they sang: “Who else among the gods is like you, O LORD? Who is glorious in holiness like you – awesome in splendor, performing such wonders? … With unfailing love you will lead this people whom you have ransomed. You will guide them in your strength to the place where your holiness dwells. … The nations will hear and tremble … until your people pass by, O LORD, until the people whom you have purchased pass by” (Exodus 15:11-16).
This song in Revelation, this song of Heaven, is more than just a worship song. This is more than a song of joy. This is a song of deliverance. This Revelation song is an Exodus song. God is leading his people out of Egypt, out of slavery to the beast, out of hell. God is leading them to Heaven, the true Promised Land.
In fact, the second part of chapter 15 is basically a retelling of the plagues in Egypt. When God set Israel free from slavery in Egypt, he sent many plagues on Egypt: blood, frogs, bugs, dead animals, painful sores, hail, and darkness (Exodus 8-11). Through the seven bowls of wrath, God sends: painful sores, blood, dead animals, burning heat, darkness, demon frogs, and hail (Revelation 16).6 Sound familiar?
God had two goals in sending plagues on Israel: to set his people free and to show the Egyptians that He the one true God (e.g. Exodus 7:5, 8:10, 23). An amazing thing happens when Israel finally leaves Egypt. “Many people who were not Israelites went with them” (Exodus 12:38). Egypt was one of the richest nations in the world at that time. Why would anyone leave Egypt to wander in the desert with a bunch of slaves?
God’s plan worked. Some of the Egyptians (and maybe some of the other slaves) saw that God is the one true God, and they decided to follow this God wherever he was going.
In Revelation, we have a similar picture. God is sending warning signs on the earth to set his people free and to invite anyone who is willing to join their exodus to freedom. In chapter 14, three angels send news to the people of earth. The first says: “Worship God. He is the one true God, the maker of everything.”7 The second says: “Hey, wake up people! Babylon – the great city, the great system of this world – is fallen. It is ruined. This city and its systems are going up in flames.”8 The third says: “I’m telling you guys – this is serious stuff. God is not messing around. If you don’t get right with God, you’re going to spend forever being wrong with God.” In Chapter 15, God is sending warning signs into their lives that they are on the wrong road.
After the Exodus God brought Israel to the Promised Land, “a land flowing with milk and honey.” After this new Exodus, God is bringing his people into his joyful presence, where he will wipe away their tears and satisfy their hunger and thirst with the joys of heaven.
Let me tell you a story. About a month ago, a KNU professor was cooking a chicken in her apartment at the top of the KNU dormitory. She forgot about it and fell asleep. She woke up hours later in the middle of the night, and her apartment was filled with smoke. She tried to let the smoke out the window, but finally she opened her door. When she opened her door, the smoke rushed out into the hallway and set off the fire alarms for the whole building.
There was no fire – just a very black chicken, but the rest of the building didn’t know that. People walked up and down the halls knocking on doors waking people up to get them out of the building. Some people refused to leave their beds. They just kept sleeping on, or trying to sleep anyway. The fire alarms were very loud and very annoying, and people kept asking when someone would turn them off.
Talking about hell can be pretty disturbing and annoying. It bothers us. No one wants to think about hell, much less the possibility that we or someone we love might go there. Some people just want to turn this annoying sound off.
But the Bible’s discussion of hell is like a fire alarm. The building really is burning. Babylon has fallen. This world’s systems are going up in flames. We need a Savior. We need an escape. We need an Exodus.
God has provided the Exodus, the escape route, through Jesus Christ. Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. … Come to me all, of you who are tired and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (John 14:6 and Matthew 11:28). God is setting his people free, and he’s taking us to heaven. Anyone can follow Jesus and be one of his freed people.
For us today, there are two ways we can respond.
Make the choice. Choose heaven. Choose heaven and then live like heaven for the rest of your life.
Be a life guard. Be a firefighter, a rescue worker. Be a fire-alarm. Proclaim the exodus through Jesus. With love and kindness, invite people around you to live free through Jesus Christ.
1 “Highway to Hell (song),” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_to_Hell_(song)
downloaded 10.11.06.
2 http://www.beliefnet.com/features/hellchart.html, downloaded 10.11.06.
3 David Couchman, “Hell: Is it real?” A talk delivered at Wellsprings Chapel, Taunton, on November 19, 2000. http://www.bibletoday.co.uk/hell.htm. downloaded 10.11.06.
4 See Ted Larson’s picture of this at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~theoson/Angel%20with%20the%20Vine.htm.
5 Couchman, “Hell: Is It Real?”
6 See Ted Larson’s picture of this at:
7 See Ted Larson’s picture of this at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~theoson/The%20Gospel%20Angel.htm.
8 See Ted Larson’s picture of this at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~theoson/Babylon%20is%20Fallen.htm.
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