Evangelism # 3
The Doctrine Nobody Likes
It is likely that as many as one third of you who hear this sermon today will not believe the content!
∙ A few years ago, US News and World Report surveyed Americans and discovered that
78% believed in Heaven and believed they were going there, while 60% believed in Hell,
but only 4% believed they were going there.
∙ Another survey of self-identified Christians found that
35% of Baptists;
54% of Presbyterians,
58% of Methodists, and
60% of Episcopalians do not believe in a literal place called hell!
It’s fairly clear that Hell is a subject so disturbing that it leads many people to try to redefine Bible doctrine. Several major heretical systems that grew out of Christianity in the last 150 years or so, reject or redefine Hell.
∙ Christian Science, founded by spiritist Mary Baker Eddy, teaches that there is no death. They believe that heaven and hell are states of thought, not places. People experience their own heaven or hell right here on earth.
∙ New Age cult leader Sun Myung Moon of The Unification Church believes that God will not desert any person eternally. By some means...they will be restored.
∙ Mormons argue that “the false doctrine that the punishment to be visited upon erring souls is endless... is but a dogma; at once unscriptural, unreasonable, and revolting.”
∙ Jehovahs Witnesses, maintain that the wicked are forever annihilated because the teaching about a fiery hell can rightly be designated as a teaching of demons.
Bertrand Russell, an eloquent atheist, said that anyone who preaches Hell is inhumane including Jesus Christ.
Robert Ingersoll who devoted himself to opposing Christianity in the late 1800’s said,
“The idea of hell was born of revenge and brutality on one side, and cowardice on the other. . . I have no respect for any human being who believes in it ... I dislike the doctrine, I hate it, I despise it, I defy this doctrine . . . this doctrine is infamous beyond all power to express.”
Ted Turner, founder of Turner Broadcasting (TBS, TNT, CNN) blasted the Christian faith at a speech to the National Press Club. "Remember, heaven is going to be perfect. And I don’t really want to be there... Those of us that go to hell, which will be most of us in this room, most journalists are certainly going there... (Laughter) but, when we get there we’ll have a chance to make things better because hell is supposed to be a mess. And heaven is perfect. Who want to go to a place that is perfect? Boring, boring." (Laughter)
Apparently I don’t much like the subject, either. In preparation for today, I found that in my library, which is fairly extensive, I do not have a single book devoted exclusively to the subject of eternal judgement and/or hell! I have about 15 years worth of sermons saved in my computer. I could only find one about Hell. There were others that mentioned the subject, but only ONE that only explored the subject by itself.
So... the next 20 or so minutes will be uncomfortable for most of us. We’ll be talking about something we would like to avoid, a subject that the majority of educated Americans reject as truthful – the existence of HELL.
Right now, you may well be asking – “Why does Jerry feel that he needs to talk about this?”
There are three major reasons that I am preaching this sermon:
1. Jesus spoke about Hell as a literal place and felt it important to warn people to avoid going there by preparing for their appointment with the Judge of all the world. If He felt it was important and He is my Lord, then it should be an important subject for me.
2. The Bible is clear that there is a place outside of the loving Presence of God that will be the eternal home of
those God judges, so I must remain faithful to Scripture and preach it’s Truth.
3. Knowing that people will actually go to Hell, ought to be a powerful motivator for us to share the Good News
that there is a Heaven!
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So, let’s try to answer some important questions:
Does the Bible actually teach that a place exists where people will be eternally separated from God?
It sure does! Jesus did not dance around the issue, nor did He candy coat His words!
In Matthew 25, there is a passage about final judgement before God. It’s a difficult passage to fully unravel, but two conclusions are clear--
There will be judgment, and
As a result of that judgment some will be consigned to eternal separation from God!
V.41 “Then the King will turn to those on the left and say, ‘Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his demons!”
In a parable about life after death found in Luke 16, Jesus talks about a selfish rich man and a poor beggar named Lazurus. The rich man’s death brought him to Hell! He was in torment and pleaded that his brothers be warned so that they would not find themselves in the same anguish.
In the book of the Revelation there are many passages that are dark and difficult, but once again, the Bible is clear about the final destination of those who reject the Truth of God.
Revelation 14:9-11
A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever 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.”
Besides Matthew, Luke, and John – Peter and Paul also wrote of the final destruction of those who refuse the word of the Living God.
In 2 Peter 3:7 we read: By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
The New Testament teaches the conscious eternal punishment of those who reject God and it does so forcefully, with clarity, and in many passages. It is not an isolated text that we must massage to come up with the doctrine of Hell. If anything; rejecting a literal Hell requires some serious misuse of the Bible’s texts.
Why then is the subject not taken seriously and rejected by so many people including many theologians?
Wayne Grudem, former professer at Trinity Evangelical Seminary who holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge, writes this:
∙ Because the doctrine of eternal punishment is so foreign to the thought patterns of our culture, and on a deeper level, to our instinctive and God-given sense of love and desire for redemption for every human being created in God’s image, this doctrine is emotionally one of the most difficult doctrines for Christians to affirm today. It also tends to be one of the first doctrines give up by those who are moving away from a commitment to the Bible as absolutely truthful in all that it affirms.
- Systematic Theology, 1994, Zondervan
This doctrine is hard and it should be hard. We should not be able to contemplate such a horror with shuddering and being moved with deep sorrow. If we can think of Hell and the idea of someone living completely apart from God and good in torment forever with casual disregard, something is seriously wrong with our character and/or personality!
When Paul thought about people being in Hell, he wrote that he felt (Romans 9:2) ... great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
When Jerusalem rejected Him, Jesus did not gloat over the fact that He knew they would be judged. He did not dismiss them with a wave of religious pride. Instead, he agonized and wept over the city using a powerful word picture of nurture and care to express His grief.
(Matthew 23:37-38) “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate.”
God’s heart is not filled with joy over the destruction of those who reject Him!
2 Peter 3:9 He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
The reality of Hell is ugly and repulsive. Yet, despite our emotional response to the doctrine, despite the difficulty of presenting it to others, we cannot take the liberty of discarding this Bible teaching. IF God declares that Hell exists, then the doctrine is right. He does not submit His wisdom to a popular vote!
What is Hell like?
Three words are repeated in the Scriptures in connection with the understanding of the destiny of people who reject God’s truth.
1. Eternal
We read the words eternal, everlasting in many references. Some object that eternal is not the same as forever. In a pure sense, they are correct. Forever implies the passage of time. In eternity, time is non-existent. The bare fact is that the end state of those who refuse God’s will is a place of conscious existence that persists. We gladly accept that about Heaven. We must also accept it about Hell! Jesus promised both: Matthew 25:46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
2. FIRE
It is this part of the doctrine of Hell that falls under the most ridicule. Those who read the word literally say, “Fire consumes fuel. If a person were to be thrown into a lake of fire as Revelation declares, they would be burned up and exist no longer. The intent of the word is to describe misery!
Fire is a frequent symbol of the wrath of God in the holy Bible. It is not likely that the Bible demands that we believe Hell to be a place of literal rapid oxidation of combustible substances.
However, there are precedents in the Bible about a kind of ‘fire’ that is different from the flickering flame in the hearth! Moses saw a ‘burning bush’ that was not consumed by the ‘fire’ that enveloped it. The three Hebrew men who were thrown into Nebuchaddnezzar’s fiery furnace walked out of that furnace without being consumed.
The fire imagery attached to the doctrine of Hell may be because of Jesus’ choice of descriptive words. He referred to the place of eternal judgment with the term, “Gehenna” several times.
Easton’s Bible Dictionary tells us that Gehenna was a deep, narrow ravine just outside of Jerusalem. It had been the place where the idolatrous Jews burned their children alive to the idols Moloch and Baal. After the Exile, in order to show their abhorrence of the locality, the residents of Jerusalem made this valley the garbage dump for the city. Fires constantly burned there fed by the garbage.
The Jews associated this valley of Gehenna (Hebrew – Hinnom) with these two ideas,
(1) that of the sufferings of the victims that had there been sacrificed; and
(2) that of filth and corruption.
It became a symbol of the abode of the wicked hereafter. It came to signify hell as the place of the wicked. The word Gehenna was never used in the time of Christ in any other sense than to denote the place of future punishment.” In this sense the word is used eleven timesby Jesus.
So, Jesus teaches by implication and use of common figure that Hell is a place of suffering and of the gathering of the wicked whose corruption brings them to Hell!
3. DARKNESS
Seven times Jesus talks about the wicked being ‘cast into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth..’ This rather strange phrase comes from the picture of the Jewish banquets that extended into the night time. A guest who got drunk and unruly was thrown out of the circle of light where joy and fellowship existed and forbidden to return. It was a painful thing to be banished from a communal event in this way. Borrowing on this familiar picture, Jesus helps us understand that Hell is a place of separation and sorrow.
Those who joke that they wish to go to Hell ‘cause that’s where their friends are throwing a party, need to better inform themselves about the nature of the place as taught in the Bible. There won’t be any festivities in Hell. It will be a place full of darkness, if not literal, then darkness as in despair and hopelessness.
Who will be in Hell?
That’s a question I cannot answer! Nor should you! It’s none of our business!
I am troubled by people who profess to know who is going to Hell and why. As I read the Scripture, I am forbidden to make that kind of judgment. God, alone, possesses the wisdom and the justice to know who will be separated from His Presence for eternity. I do not have the omniscience or the capability of perfect justice required to make a Heaven/Hell decision. I have enough trouble trying to discern between good and bad in my own heart, never mind trying to judge the saved and the lost. However, I can know that I am going to Heaven and I am privileged to invite others to go with me! So.... my business as a Believer is to extend His offer of life to all. When Jesus spoke of this, He said...
John 3:16-18
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
That’s both full of hope and a careful warning!
The Lamb of God who died for the sins of the world is also the Lion of Judah capable of judging the unrepentant. God who is good, loving, kind, patient, and always willing to forgive, full of mercy – is also just, infinitely holy, and perfectly righteousness. So I trust Him and I run eagerly to accept His salvation.
Let me underline this wonderful truth as I bring this message to a close – Hell is a self-imposed torment!
We speak of “God sending someone to Hell” when in reality a person chooses to be there long before his death and judgement! Mark Littleton says it so well....
“As we read about the agonies of Hell – total solitude, darkness, utter worthlessness, fire and burning, thirst, weeping and anguish, no rest, shame, hopelessness, and complete despair — we see that it is the exact opposite of ALL that is God. He offers hope; hell writhes in despair. He gives peace, hell screams with pain. He wipes tears from our eyes, hell is nothing but weeping. He gives His children rest, water, food, and fulfillment; hell offers only deprivation. ... thus we see that living in Hell is nothing more than an extension of a life lived without God.”
How strongly can I urge you to Choose Christ today!
Choose the blessings of life, for now - for eternity.
Let me underscore a point made a moment ago. You cannot say for certain whether others will be in Hell, but you can choose with certainty NOT to be there. And you can work diligently to assure that others know the Way to Life as well.
My the reality of the awful doctrine sober us. May an ugly vision of the ugliest place in all of Creation cause us to focus on those things which really matter, in living here and now in the life of God so that our death will be like stepping from one room of His house to another. In salvation, we find the incredible grace expressed through Christ Jesus. May that grace overflow from our lives that others may know Him, too.
Amen.
