Extremists
For Hell
1 Peter 4:4 “Wherein they think it
strange that ye run not with them to the same excess
of riot, speaking evil of you:
5
Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge
the quick and the dead.
6 For
for this cause was the gospel preached also to them
that are dead, that they might be judged according
to men in the flesh, but live according to God in
the spirit.”
1. The Excess Of Riot
2. The Future
Accounting
3. The Center Of The Earth
1. The Excess Of Riot
Verse four: “Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you:”
I remember running with the crowd.
The crowd is the men of this world.
I thought like them.
I dressed like them.
I talked like them.
I was interested in the same things as them.
I was one of them.
I simply fitted in with the people of this old world.
Furthermore, I ran with the same “excess of riot” as any one of them. I am not bragging. I am ashamed to admit it.
Now what is this thing in verse four called “excess of riot”?
It means this … to be wild or to run wild … like a pack of dogs. It means to be UNRULY.
Let the BIBLE [the Authorized Version of 1611, or any edition, thereof, 1613, 1644, 1676, 1680, 1701, 1767] define it for you!
You can get the gist of it from Titus chapter one, verse six: “If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly.” [Titus 1:6]
Rioting is related to unruliness.
And again, to hone it even further the Spirit of God in Second Peter chapter two, verse thirteen gives us this: “And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you; Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:" [2 Peter 2:13-14]
Rioting is very much kindred to unruliness, and unruliness with covetous practices.
Here is a basic premise found here, and elsewhere, in the Bible. The men of this world are guilty of excessive “riot”.
Excessive means extreme! Therefore, the men of this world are the true extremists in possessing this propensity to “excess of riot”.
Now, if you do not fit in the world, or if you lose interest in the things of this world that the men of this world have interest in … [by getting saved or born again], then the men and women of this world will be speaking “evil of you”. Amen!
This is where the strangeness to them will come in. They will “think it strange” that you are no longer are running WILD with them anymore, because your life has changed right before their very own eyes. Because of this, your former friends will be “speaking evil of you”.
Now, this should be no surprise to you. Why? Because the BOOK has told you why! Get it through your head!
Now, here it is again! “Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you” [verse four].
Christian, you are listening to a different
drummer now. The Spirit of God is in you now
that you are a true Christian.
2. The Future Accounting
Verse five: “Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.”
There is coming a day when there will be a complete and final accounting “to him” who will be sitting on “a great white throne”. Yes, my friend, there is coming a day when a total account will be given by all who ever lived on the face of this earth.
Imagine this scene found in the book of Revelation chapter twenty verse twelve: “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.” [Revelation 20:12]
This is an awesome scene.
If a person will not receive Jesus Christ now while he or she is alive on this earth then one day they will “give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead”.
This scares me. It scares me to think of all my friends and my loved ones to be standing there in that day.
Now, what about this? Where are you, my friend? Are you safely hidden in the cleft of the Rock of Jesus Christ … with all your sins covered by the blood of Lamb of God shed on Mount Calvary or are you going to be one of those standing there [giving “account”] before the Son of God at this White Throne Judgment [which judgment will be at end of the upcoming one-thousand-year Kingdom of Heaven]?
Please, my friend, you do not want to be there to give account. You ought to settle your account with Jesus Christ now by RECEIVING Jesus Christ. “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:” [John 1:12]
3. The Center Of The Earth
Verse six: “For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.”
The “gospel” was preached to the “dead”.
When did this happen? This “gospel” was preached in 33 A.D. by Jesus Christ to all the Old Testament saints that were in that part of HELL called Abraham’s Bosom which is Paradise [See Luke 16:22]. [Ephesians 4:9]
In all cases [except for Enoch and Elijah] until 33 A.D., the dead [their souls] all went down … into the center of the earth. The “dead” that are the wicked [or the unrighteous] go to the other part of HELL.
They went down into a PIT!
This is where “all the men that appertained unto Korah” in the book of Numbers went when they opposed God’s authority … Moses.
[This account is located in Numbers chapter sixteen, verses thirty thru thirty-three for all to read and believe.] Do you believe the Bible? Are you ready for this? Ok, here we go: “But if the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit; then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord."
[Do you see the direction? DOWN!
Do you see that “pit”?] “And it came to pass, as he had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them: And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.”
[The earth has a mouth!
Do you see that?] "They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.” [Numbers 16:33]
They went “down alive into the pit”!
Did you get that?
Where do the “dead” go?
1. They go down. The direction is down.
2. They go down … into the pit.
3. The pit is Hell.
4. Hell is in the center of the earth.
Now, there is more here. The diameter of the earth is approximately 8,000 miles, which means the center of this earth [where Hell is] is approximately 4,000 miles below us.
Now there is something else we need to realize. The center of this earth is very hot. In fact, it is estimated to be over 7000 degrees Fahrenheit and may even approach the temperature of the surface sun itself. That is HOT!
Now, men have drilled holes down only 18 miles into the earth, which is only about 0.2 percent of the Earth's radius. And this is what researchers: Ronald Cohen and Lars Stixrude, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington have discovered using a Cray C9 super computer. I will quote them. Ready?
“What the scientists” [the men of this earth] “have pieced together comes primarily from seismic data. When shock waves from earthquakes ripple through the planet, they are detected by sensitive instruments at many locations on the surface. The record of these vibrations reveals variations in their path and speed to scientists who can then draw inferences about the planet's inner structure. This work has added much knowledge over the last ten years, including a puzzling observation: Seismic waves travel faster north-south than east-west, about four seconds faster pole-to-pole than through the equator. This finding, confirmed only within the past two years, quickly led to the conclusion that Earth's solid-iron inner core is "anisotropic" -- it has a directional quality, a texture similar to the grain in wood, that allows sound waves to go faster when they travel in a certain direction. What, exactly, is the nature of this inner-core texture? To this question, the seismic data responds with sphinx-like silence. "The problem," says Ronald Cohen of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, "is then we're stymied. We know there's some kind of structure, the data tells us that, but we don't know what it is. If we knew the sound velocities in iron at the pressure and temperature of the inner core, we could get somewhere."
This is what un-saved men have discovered.
They know some kind of structure is down there in the center of the earth. What is it? I will tell you what it is. It is the PIT.
This “structure” they have found is HELL.
“Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down:” [Amos 9:2]
“And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” [Matthew 10:28] Amen!
Remember, it is the men of this world who are guilty of excessive “riot”.
Excessive riot leads to extremism in sin.
Therefore, the men of this world are the true extremists [“excess of riot”] who are heading for the center of the earth … to HELL to wait for the horrible day of accounting [the great white throne judgment] “to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.”