Punishment for Sin

Constructed during the early 18th-century during the reign of Sultan Ismail bin Sharif, the Kara Prison is a vast subterranean prison in the city of Meknes, Morocco. Its most unusual feature is that it lacked doors and bars, but it’s believed that no one ever escaped.

Its inescapability despite lacking bars and doors was due to its complex labyrinth-like design. It was named after a Portuguese prisoner who was granted freedom on the condition that he constructed a prison that could house more than 40,000 inmates.

The entrance is located in Ismaili Qasba, but the labyrinth goes on for miles. Some believe it’s roughly the size of the city itself. According to legends, a team of French explorers attempted to discover the vastness of the prison and never returned. Each hall of the dungeon contained several corridors, which led to another hall, into another, then into another.

As time went on, the prison was discontinued and was utilized as a storage facility for food. Today, a portion of the former prison is open to the public, but its true extent is still unknown.

Possible Preaching Angle:

While this Moroccan prison may have claimed to be escape-proof, it is certain that there is no escape from hell. An inescapable horror of black darkness (Jude 1:4,13), eternal fire (Matt. 25:41), undying worms (Mark 9:44, 48), and everlasting destruction (2 Thess. 1:9) await those who reject Christ.

Sometimes the wheels of justice turn slowly, but eventually they do turn. Such was the case for Billy Ray Trueblood, who was finally sentenced in May of this year for charges in connection with the 2019 death of accountant Alex Reser. Authorities say that Trueblood sold Reser counterfeit Oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl, which resulted in Reser’s death from overdose.

According to federal officials, the investigation zeroed in on Trueblood fairly quickly, as he was known for dealing opioids like Fentanyl. But they’d been unable to locate Trueblood until May of 2019, when one of the investigators happened to be watching the Portland Trail Blazers in an NBA playoff game and saw Trueblood captured on camera, seated just a few rows behind Blazers head coach Terry Stotts. Federal officials notified local police on hand at the arena, and Trueblood was arrested without incident.

At Trueblood’s sentencing hearing, Reser’s loved ones asked U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman for a harsh sentence. His father, Marty Reser, said in court:

[Alex] had so much to live for, but he died one day after we returned [from vacation]. For Billy, it was all about the buck … We were hoping for justice because our son Alex is not coming back … No one will ever again have the opportunity to spend time, create more memories with Alex.

Trueblood was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison and four years of supervised release.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Even when people think we’re successful at hiding from God, it’s all a fantasy. God knows us down to our core and there are consequences for sin. “… you may be sure that your sin will find you out” (Num. 32:23).

For most people, a drive home from a day out is rather uneventful, but most people are not Christopher Young. Young was spotted by Portland police officers driving a gray Audi without a license plate, and one of them thought the Oregon DMV Trip Permit in the window looked a little fishy. After running the number and determining it was fake, officers followed Young in traffic, and eventually decided to pull him over. This prompted Young to flee. Police then began a high-speed pursuit in which Young “drove into oncoming traffic, ran multiple red lights, nearly collided with multiple motorists and at one point drove onto a sidewalk,” according to court documents.

Police eventually apprehended Young at his home. Upon securing a warrant for the property, they discovered the VIN on the Audi had been painted over, there were several other stolen cars on the property, and that Young was in possession of firearms, at least one fake ID, and tools associated with car theft.

Young currently faces 51 counts of criminal charges, including identity theft, forgery, possession of a stolen vehicle, and reckless driving.

Possible Preaching Angle:

There's no way to outrun justice or the truth; God's desire for righteousness in the earth is so unrelenting there's no point for anyone trying to lie, cheat, or steal their way to prosperity. It won't work ultimately.

Hannah Beswick had a morbid fear of being buried alive, and this dread was not entirely irrational. Her young brother John almost had his coffin lid closed over him when a mourner attending John’s supposed death noticed the eyelids of the “dead body” flickering. On examination, the family physician confirmed that John was still alive. John regained consciousness a few days later, and lived for many more years.

Such incidents were not uncommon during the period in which Hannah Beswick lived—late 17th to mid-18th century. In fact, cases of premature burial have been documented well into the late 19th century. These are gruesome tales—urban legend or otherwise—about victims falling into the state of coma, and then waking up days … later to find themselves entombed.

The Scottish philosopher John Duns Scotus (1266-1308) was reported to have been buried alive after one of his occasional fits of coma was mistaken to be the loss of life. After his tomb was reopened, years later, his body was found outside his coffin. His hands were torn and bloody from the attempted escape.

On February 21, 1885, The New York Times gave a disturbing account of a man identified as “Jenkins,” whose body was found turned over onto its front inside the coffin, with much of his hair pulled out. There were also scratch marks visible on all sides of the coffin's interior.

Another story reported in The Times on January 18, 1886, tells about a Canadian girl named "Collins," whose body was described as being found with the knees tucked up under the body, and her burial shroud “torn into shreds.”

After the incident with her brother, Hannah was left with a pathological fear of the same thing befalling her. She asked her doctor to ensure that there was no risk of premature burial when her time came. She demanded her body be kept above ground and regularly examined for signs of life until it was certain she was dead.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This is a gruesome illustration but one which can realistically apply directly to the horrors of hell. The terrifying reality of the unsaved awakening after death in the inescapable horror of conscious eternity in hell cannot be ignored. We must be realistic in our view of both heaven and hell, and be compelled to preach the good news of God’s saving grace to a lost and dying world.

In a novel by the British mystery writer P.D. James, a detective shares a common sentiment, saying, “I don’t go for all this emphasis on sin, suffering, and judgment. If I had a God, I’d like him to be intelligent, cheerful, and amusing.” In response, her Jewish colleague says, “I doubt whether you would find him much of a comfort when they herded you into the gas chambers. You might prefer a God of vengeance.”

Theologian J. Todd Billings comments on this quote:

A God without wrath is a God who whitewashes evil and is deaf to the cries of the powerless. A student of mine who grew up in a gang culture and had many whom he loved taken from him by violence told me with profound honesty that “If God will not avenge, I am tempted to avenge.” Precisely because God is a God of love, he is also a God of holy wrath.

Drive three and a half hours north of Turkmenistan’s capital, into the flat, seemingly empty desert. In the middle of nowhere, you’ll see it. Bright orange flames rise out of an infernal abyss, licking the night sky. The air at the pit’s edge is thick and hot, like standing too close to an erupting volcano. It smells faintly of propane, and it is loud, like a jet engine revving up. Welcome to the Gates of Hell—at least until its devilish blaze is snuffed out.

In January of 2022, Turkmenistan’s President announced plans to extinguish the decades-old conflagration in the chasm. He cited safety concerns for those living nearby as well as economic loss as valuable methane gas burns off into the atmosphere. But he didn’t specify how he would put out the immense fire—perhaps by filling in the crater or diverting the gas elsewhere.

People have been trying to put out the crater’s fires since they first ignited—whenever that was. No one even knows exactly how or when the crater formed. The most widely circulated story about the crater says it formed in 1971 following a drilling accident. The Soviets were drilling in the desert for natural gas, when the drilling rig collapsed into the earth. Hoping to burn off the methane gas that floated up from the newly formed crater, the Soviets lit it on fire. They thought it would burn off the methane in a day or two. Five decades later, the crater’s still burning.

It’s rumored the Soviets tried to stop the blaze several times. But the fiery hellscape has continued to burn, drawing more and more tourists each year. The crater’s growing popularity is largely thanks to the internet and viral photos of the unearthly phenomenon.

But it may be harder to stop the flames than just pouring a bunch of sand into the pit. Explorer George Kourounis said, “As I was digging into the ground to gather soil samples, fire would start coming out of the hole I just freshly dug because it was creating new paths for the gas to come out of the crater. So even if you were to extinguish the fire and cover it up, there’s a chance that the gas could still find its way out to the surface and all it would take is one spark to light it up again.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

This deadly manmade fire may one day be extinguished. But the real fires of hell will burn forever according to the Lord’s own words as he described the Lake of Fire, the destiny of the unsaved.

In the town of Merced, which is named after the Spanish word for “mercy,” a bumbling robbery attempt was quickly brought to a merciful end. According to authorities, Stephan Stanley began breaking the glass in the jewelry department of a JC Penney store in Merced Mall. He was grabbed by two nearby men in the store, who attempted to hold him down to prevent him from getting away with any merchandise. Angered at their intervention, Stanley tried to use pepper spray against his sudden captors, but instead he sprayed himself.

Temporarily incapacitated by his own pepper spray, Stanley was easily subdued, and was eventually arrested on suspicion of robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, and drug charges. He was subsequently booked into Merced County Jail, where he is unlikely to receive much in the way of mercy.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Justice will come to those who break God’s law, some sooner than is expected. “He that digs a hole will fall into it” (Ecc. 10:8).

Author/speaker Christopher Ash asks, “What are we to make of the Bible’s passages that seem to speak quite straightforwardly of blessings following obedience and curses following apostasy?” Ash urges that a distinction be made between the general truth of such sayings and absolute “every case” truth. He offers the following illustration:

Suppose an earthquake struck a well-planned place like Manhattan, with its clear and ordered grid of streets. If I wanted to go from A to B after the earthquake, I would in general still be best advised to go by the main roads. But whereas before the earthquake that would always be the best route, now I might find both that the main road has been blocked and also that some building has collapsed to open up some unplanned route.

It is a little like this with the created order after the disruption of the fall of humankind. In general, keeping God’s commandments and living in line with the created order will bring peace and prosperity. In general, for example, if I am honest and work hard, I will do better. But not always. And the final proof that righteousness pays will not come until the final judgment, when the disruption will be put right and the creation reordered as it ought to be.

A high school ethics textbook published by the Chinese government includes a revised version of John 8:3–11. In the Christian version, Jesus is presented with a woman caught in adultery and says, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (v. 7).

In the Communist revision, however, Jesus says the law has to be enforced and stones the woman to death himself.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This false translation represents the malicious teaching that Satan would have the world believe: God is merciless, harsh, and cold towards sinners who come to him. Satan does all he can to conceal the wonderful grace of God freely offered to all in the crucified and risen Christ.

Pastor and author J.D. Greear writes:

I remember a Muslim asking me when I lived in Southeast Asia, why would God need somebody to die in order to forgive our sin? He said, "If you sinned against me, and I wanted to forgive you, I wouldn't make you kill your dog before I forgave you. Why would God require some kind of sacrifice to forgive?"

Here's how I answered him:

Choosing to forgive somebody means that you are agreeing to absorb the cost of the injustice of what they've done. Imagine you stole my car and you wrecked it, and you don't have insurance and or the money to pay for it. What are my choices? I could make you pay. I could haul you before a judge and request a court-mandated payment plan. If you were foolish enough to steal my $1.5 million Ferrari (No, I do not actually own a Ferrari), you might never pay it off, and you'd always be in my debt.

But I have another choice. I could forgive you …. What am I choosing to do if I say, “I forgive you”? I'm choosing to absorb the cost of your wrong. I'll have to pay the price of having the car fixed. ... You have no debt to pay—not because there was nothing to pay, but because I paid it all. Not only that, I'm choosing to absorb the pain of your treatment of me. ... I'm choosing to give you friendship and acceptance even though you deserve the opposite.

This is always how forgiveness works. It comes at a cost. If you forgive someone, you bear the cost rather than insisting that the wrongdoer does. And that is what Jesus, the Mighty God, was doing when he came to earth and lived as a man and died a criminal's death on a wooden cross.

Timothy Keller writes “In A Reason for God”:

In Christianity God is both a God of love and of justice. Many people struggle with this. They believe that a loving God can't be a judging God. Like most other Christian ministers in our society, I have been asked literally thousands of times, "How can a God of love be also a God of filled with wrath and anger? If he is loving and perfect, he should forgive and accept everyone. He shouldn't get angry."

I always start my response by pointing out that all loving persons are sometimes filled with wrath, not just despite of but because of their love. If you love a person and you see someone ruining them—even they themselves—you get angry. As Becky Pippert puts it in her book Hope Has Its Reasons:

Think how we feel when we see someone we love ravaged by unwise actions or relationships. Do we respond with benign tolerance as we might toward strangers? Far from it. . . . Anger isn’t the opposite of love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference. . . . God’s wrath is not a cranky explosion, but his settled opposition to the cancer . . . which is eating out the insides of the human race he loves with his whole being.

The Bible says that God's wrath flows from his love and delight in his creation. He is angry at evil and injustice because it is destroying its peace and integrity.

President Mobutu reigned as the dictator and President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1965 to 1997. But after global political changes, Mobutu was forced out of power and the country collapsed and descended into conflict and chaos. British pastor Mark Meynell tells the story of his good friend Emma, who witnessed many atrocities committed against his friends and family members. He and his wife and three daughters fled east on foot. Weeks later they arrived in Uganda as refugees, with nothing. After a few months of a miserable existence, he walked past a local seminary and sensed that the Lord was calling him to ministry. The family had been living in one room, without water or electricity, and enough to pay for one meal every two days.

Meynell said that one evening they met in the seminary's tiny library and started talking. As Emma opened his heart and shared the story of the violence and injustice he had witnessed, he started to openly weep, despite the fact that African men never cry in public. Then Emma said these sobering words, "You know Mark, I could never believe the gospel if it were not for the judgment of God. Because I will never get justice in this world. But I couldn't cope if I was NEVER going to see justice done."

Meynell commented, "We in the West often recoil from God's justice for a very simple reason: We've hardly had to suffer injustice. But most people around the globe recognize that God's justice is praiseworthy and great. Of course his mercy and redemption are even greater, but we need his perfect justice as well."

On September 2, 1990, a murder occurred in New York City that horrified the nation. The Watkins family from Provo, Utah, a father and mother with their two barely grown sons, had come joyfully to the city for a long-anticipated trip to attend the US Open tennis matches. While waiting on the subway platform for the train to Flushing Meadows, the family was assaulted by a band of four youths. The older of the two sons went to his mother's rescue as she was being kicked in the face, and he was killed in the attempt. The judge, Edwin Torres, sentenced all four attackers to life without parole, the toughest sentence possible in New York at that time, and in doing so issued a striking statement expressing grave alarm for a society in which "a band of marauders can surround, pounce upon, and kill a boy in front of his parents [and then] stride up the block to Roseland and dance until 4 a.m. as if they had stepped on an insect. [These acts were] a visitation that the devil himself would hesitate to conjure up. That cannot go unpunished."

It makes many people queasy nowadays to talk about the wrath of God, but there can be no turning away from this prominent biblical theme … If we are resistant to the idea of the wrath of God, we might pause to reflect the next time we are outraged about something [much smaller than a murder but still worthy of our anger]—about our property values being threatened, or our children's educational opportunities being limited, or our tax breaks being eliminated. All of us are capable of anger about something. God's anger, however, is pure … The wrath of God is not an emotion that flares up from time to time, as though God has temper tantrums. It is a way of describing his absolute enmity against all wrong and his coming to set matters right.

Tim Keller says:

In one of my after-service discussions a woman told me that the very idea of a judging God was offensive. I said, "Why aren't you offended by the idea of a forgiving God?" She looked puzzled. I continued, "I respectfully urge you to consider your cultural location when you find the Christian teaching about hell offensive." I went on to point out that secular Westerners get upset by the Christian doctrines of hell, but they find Biblical teaching about turning the other cheek and forgiving enemies appealing.

I then asked her to consider how someone from a very different culture sees Christianity. In traditional societies the teaching about "turning the other cheek" makes absolutely no sense. It offends people's deepest instincts about what is right. For them the doctrine of a God of judgment, however, is no problem at all. That society is repulsed by aspects of Christianity that Western people enjoy, and are attracted by the aspects that secular Westerners can't stand.

Why, I concluded, should Western cultural sensibilities be the final court in which to judge whether Christianity is valid? I asked the woman gently whet her she thought her culture superior to nonWestern ones. She immediately answered "no." "Well then," I asked, "why should your culture's objections to Christianity trump theirs?"

Incredible perseverance paid off for a team from the International Justice Mission in Cebu, Philippines. After an eight year legal struggle, two traffickers were finally brought to justice.

The difficult case began in 2008, when a teenage girl and two young women were recruited and ferried to work at a brothel on an island far from their home. When they arrived and realized they had been trapped and would be forced to provide sexual services to customers, they escaped.

International Justice Mission, a Christian organization founded on God's Word and the power of prayer, offered aftercare services to help the two girls settle back into the rhythms of life in freedom, and took up what would turn out to be nearly a decade-long battle for justice. As the case moved to trial, it highlighted what was broken in the justice system. Hearings were frequently cancelled when a key party—the judge, the defense counsel, a witness—failed to show up. The courts were backlogged, and hearings would be rescheduled three or four months apart.

The trial was painstakingly slow, but IJM social workers were encouraged by the progress they saw in the lives of the two young women. After spending time in aftercare homes for sex trafficking survivors, both young women moved back into supportive communities where they are now thriving. Finally in November 2016, IJM announced: "On November 14, 2016 two traffickers were sentenced to 20 years in prison. This conviction brings closure and affirms these survivors of their worth. It also sends a message to other brothel owners and traffickers across the Philippines—justice will be served, no matter how long it takes."

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Justice; Injustice—This illustration shows how all followers of Jesus should fight for justice for the oppressed. (2) God's justice; God's wrath—But it also shows how imperfect human justice is. We long for the day when "justice will be served" not just by human courts but by the Living God.

In Fleming Rutledge's new book, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ, she acknowledges the difficulty that modern people have with the concept of God's wrath. Nevertheless, she writes, "there can be no turning away from this prominent biblical theme." But forget the Bible for a moment: don't we have wrath, too? Rutledge writes:

A slogan of our times is "Where's the outrage?" It has been applied to everything from Big Pharma's market manipulation to CEOs' astronomical wealth to police officers' stonewalling. "Where the outrage?" inquire many commentators, wondering why congressmen, officials, and ordinary voters seem so indifferent. Why has the gap between rich and poor become so huge? Why are so many mentally ill people slipping through the cracks? Why does gun violence continue to be a hallmark of American culture? Why are there so many innocent people on death row? Why are our prisons filled with such a preponderance of black and Hispanic men? Where's the outrage? The public is outraged all over cyberspace about all kinds of things that annoy us personally—the NIMBY (not in my back yard) syndrome—but outrages in the heart of God go unnoticed and unaddressed.

If we are resistant to the idea of the wrath of God, we might pause to reflect the next time we are outraged about something—about our property values being threatened, or our children's educational opportunities being limited, or our tax breaks being eliminated. All of us are capable of anger about something. God's anger, however, is pure. It does not have the maintenance of privilege as its object, but goes out on behalf of those who have no privileges. the wrath of God is not an emotion that flares up from time to time, as though God had temper tantrums; it is a way of describing his absolute enmity against all wrong and his come to set matters right.

"Be sure your sin will find you out," Numbers 32:23 tells us. But in the case of this story, we could also say "Be sure your Cheetos will find you out." During the early morning hours of January 6, 2013, county deputies were called to the Cassatt Country Store in Cassatt, South Carolina to investigate a burglary. The deputies determined that someone had broken into the store and stolen beer, cigarettes, snack foods, and energy drinks. The burglar only stole $160 worth of goods, but caused about $2,500 in damages.

The store manager, Howard "Buck" Buckholz, said, "He knocked out our front door, he knocked out the beer cooler, and stole beer, cigarettes, Slim Jims, and in his haste, he punctured two or three bags of Cheetos." That was the burglar's undoing. Buckholz said, "Cheetos were all over the parking lot, at the place where he parked his car, and at the residence." The police followed the trail of cheesy dust right to the house where the burglar was staying with a friend. As investigators approached the front door of the home, they observed more fresh Cheetos on the front porch. Buckholz added, "He was very easy to catch. It was a very quick deal."

Possible Preaching Ideas: Our sin may not be revealed this quickly, but our sin and our actions will leave a trail. Like this burglar, we aren't near as clever as we think we are.

A beach near Perranporth, Cornwall (in Great Britain) is unlike any other stretch of coast in the world. Not for its breakers or sand, but for what washes up in the surf: Tens of thousands of toy Lego bricks. Back in 1997, a shipping container filled with millions of Lego pieces went under the waves off the coast. As a result, 62 containers onboard the ship went overboard, and one of those containers had nearly 4.8 million pieces of Lego bound for New York.

No-one knows exactly what happened next, or even what was in the other 61 containers, but Lego pieces started washing up in both the north and south coasts of Cornwall. And in a quirky twist, many of the Lego items were nautical-themed, so locals and tourists alike have found miniature cutlasses, flippers, spear guns, seagrass, and scuba gear as well as dragons.

A U.S. oceanographer named Curtis Ebbesmeyer, who studies ocean currents and has been studying the story of the Lego pieces on the coast of Cornwall, offered a simple lesson. He said,

The most profound lesson I've learned from the Lego story, is that things that go to the bottom of the sea don't always stay there … They can be carried around the world, seemingly randomly, but subject to the planet's currents and tides. The incident is a perfect example of how even when inside a steel container, sunken items don't stay sunken.

Possible Preaching Angles: Certain things in the spiritual life—especially our sins and our wounds—don't stay sunken forever. Like the Lego pieces, these spiritual realities will eventually rise to the surface. The question is what we will do when we come across signs of them in our lives, sticking up out of the sand?

The hit TV show Breaking Bad follows the story of Walter White, a mild-mannered chemistry teacher who, after receiving a terminal diagnosis, turns to cooking crystal meth to provide for his family. As he develops a taste for the trade, Walt slowly turns into a bold but degenerate thug. But the show doesn't soft-peddle the consequences of sin. The show's creator, Vince Gilligan, said, "If there's a larger lesson to Breaking Bad, it's that actions have consequences …. I feel some sort of need for biblical atonement, or justice, or something."

In one of the most memorable scenes of season four, the biblical implications of Gilligan's vision become clear. Walt's younger accomplice Jesse Pinkman commits murder and then attends a Narcotics Anonymous meeting in hopes of finding relief. After Jesse shares a thinly veiled version of his crime, the group leader counsels self-acceptance. "We're not here to sit in judgment," he says, to which Jesse explodes:

Why not? Why not? … If you just do stuff and nothing happens, what's it all mean? What's the point? … So no matter what I do, hooray for me because I'm a great guy? It's all good? No matter how many dogs I kill, I just—what, do an inventory, and accept?

It's not surprising that Vince Gilligan believes in hell and judgment for human sin. He said, "I want to believe there's a heaven. But I can't not believe there's a hell."

In 1988 George H.W. Bush was elected President of the United States, but in 1987 the frontrunner for the Democrats was a senator from Colorado named Gary Hart. After rumors surfaced about extramarital affairs, Hart famously dared reporters to follow him, so they did. Two reporters from The Miami Herald saw a young woman leaving Hart's Washington, D.C. townhouse on the evening of May 2nd. The woman was 29-year-old Donna Rice. A few days later the media revealed that Hart had spent a night in a yacht called the Monkey Business with Ms. Rice. Pictures of Rice sitting on Hart's lap made front-page news around the nation.

Senator Hart's presidential bid imploded, but whatever happened to Donna Rice? In 2013 she explained how she had wandered from and returned to her faith in Christ:

Toward the end of my college career, I started making these little left hand turns. Before long I was dating some non-Christian guys and thought, "That's not a big deal." It's hard to believe how you can go from here to there—you don't go there overnight, you go there by little wrong choices. I saw Hart only twice, but … God was trying to get my attention prior to that, and it took an international sex scandal because I was stubborn. God will track you down. He will let things happen, the natural consequences of our choices.

Rice began her journey back to the Lord, living under the media's radar for seven years, caring for a disabled woman, getting married, and then becoming president of Enough Is Enough. Now the media seeks out Donna Rice Hughes not for her sexual scandals but for her expertise in promoting internet safety and sexual wholeness. Donna said, "Oddly, I was Miss Scandal Queen 1987 and now I'm seen as this voice of decency and morality. That's a God thing."

Editor’s Note: This ministry is still going strong in 2024. You can view the website here