Why Did God Make Hell? Series

OPEN: A detective was investigating a burglary at a church building. He questioned one suspect - who he was pretty sure committed the crime – but he couldn’t prove it. Finally, the preacher of the church stepped up and asked if he could talk to the suspect alone. Within minutes, the preacher came back to detective with information about the pawnshop where the thief had pawned the stolen items. The detective was amazed. “How did you do that?” he asked. The preacher replied: “I told him you could send him to jail… but I could send him to hell.” (Reader’s Digest 4/99 p. 118 by Lisa Hensley)

The past couple of weeks we’ve been focusing on a monologue by one of my favorite YouTube speakers – named Joe Scott. And we’ve been trying to answer his very sincere questions that explained why he struggled with his faith in God. One of those questions was: “If God is all love then why would He send me to hell for eternity because I didn’t honor my father and mother correctly? For that matter, why did He make hell in the first place?” (See Footnote)

So the TOPIC for this Sunday is Hell. And Joe Scott has actually asked 2 questions: 1) Why did God make Hell? And 2) Why would God send ME to hell?

But before we try to answer Joe’s questions we need to understand a couple things

ILLUS: A preacher named Vance Havner told about a church member who didn’t like the sermons he preached about hell. The member told him: “Preach about the meek and lowly Jesus.” Havner replied: “That’s where I got my information about Hell.” And he was right. Most of what we know about hell was taught to us by Jesus. That's the first thing we need to realize.

Secondly, we need to realize that hell is NOT a popular place for most people. A survey by Gallup in 2009 found that 86% of Americans believed in Heaven, and most thought they were going to go there. But in that same poll only 69% of those interviewed believed in Hell. And just one-half of 1% of Americans expected to go to Hell upon their death.

Only ½ of 1%??? Why would people be so unenthusiastic about going to hell? Well, because Jesus painted us a really horrifying and dreadful picture of the place. Jesus described hell as a furnace of ?re (Matt. 13:41, 42). A place of torment (Luke 16:23) and everlasting punishment (Matt. 25:46). A place of weeping (Matt. 8:12) and wailing (Matt. 13:42) and cries for mercy (Luke 16:24).

There’s an old church camp song called “Heaven Is A Wonderful Place (sing it with me): “Heaven is a wonderful place, filled with glory and grace, I want to see my Saviour’s face, Heaven is a wonderful place. (I want to go there).

“HELL is a horrible place, filled with sin and disgrace. Don’t wanna see that devil’s face, cause hell is a horrible place (Don’t wanna go there)."

IT’S A HORRIBLE PLACE! You don’t want to go there! And, of course, that’s the whole reason Jesus described Hell in such stark terms. You DON’T want to go there!!!!

Now, what’s interesting is that Jesus didn’t talk about hell with just anybody. For example, He didn’t talk about hell with people we’d call “sinners.”

He didn’t mention hell to the woman at the well. She was a woman who had had 5 husbands and she was now living with a man who wasn’t even her husband. You’d have thought He’d have talked to HER about hell!

And Jesus didn’t mention hell to Zacchaeus - the wee little man who everyone hated because he was a tax collector in the employ of Rome… and who had probably cheated people by skimming extra taxes off top (which Rome allowed). Certainly, Zacchaeus would be an ideal candidate to be told about hell.

And Jesus didn’t mention hell to the Centurion who had asked to have his servant healed. That centurion was a Roman who had probably worshipped pagan gods. That guy was definitely going to hell.

Those were the people you’d expect Jesus to mention hell to. You’d think Jesus would confront sinners with Hell to scare them into changing… but He didn’t!

No, instead Jesus seems to have focused his talks about hell on the religiously comfortable. Folks like the Pharisees: In Matthew 23:33 Jesus condemned the Pharisees by telling them: "You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?”

And, of course, he talked about hell to people who came to hear Him preach and who probably believed they were OK because they were good Jews. At the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned of hell those JEWS in His audience: “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” Matthew 5:29-30