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The Rock Family Worship Center
Taking The Church Outside The Walls
The Rock Family Worship Center
Why Rethinking Hell Matters Today
God has given us the ministry of reconciliation, which means restoring humanity's relationship with God through Christ's finished work on the cross.
• Reconciliation means "to change thoroughly" or "to restore to favor," implying we were included in God's plan from the beginning
• The Greek word "cosmos" in 2 Corinthians 5:19 refers to all humanity, not just the planet
• Jesus used the term "Gehenna" (a real valley outside Jerusalem) when speaking about hell, not describing eternal conscious torment
• Jesus only warned Jews about Gehenna, never Gentiles, suggesting it was about Jerusalem's destruction, not afterlife punishment
• Our view of hell shapes our view of God's character—love and eternal torture are incompatible
• Traditional hell doctrine developed centuries after the disciples, influenced more by Dante's Inferno than scripture
• Fear-based theology produces anxiety and superficial religion rather than genuine transformation
• Perfect love casts out fear—the two are fundamentally incompatible
• Rethinking hell isn't about denying it exists but understanding it differently than tradition
If you're struggling with questions about what you've been taught, don't be afraid to go deeper. You're not being rebellious—you're pursuing truth. God is more loving than many of us have been told, and you are already loved, already included, and already His.
But this is a verse that you can use to, really, if somebody was to say, okay, what do you believe and why do you believe that, this is a verse that can really help you explain to people, especially if you understand what it's really saying.
Speaker 1:So, in 2 Corinthians 5 and 19, this is where he's saying that God was in Christ. That right there alone you can break that part down. What does that mean? God was in Christ, you know, reconciling the world to himself, and we've got to understand this word world here. When we're talking about it, we're not talking about the planet, we're not talking about earth. This word right here is cosmos. It means everything in humanity. Another way that it breaks down is system. I like that word because it's talking about the inner workings of everything that God created, that he was reconciling everything. He was reconciling the world to himself, not imputing or not holding their sins against them, and has also committed to us the word, or some translations say, the ministry of reconciliation.
Speaker 1:I've said oftentimes that the only ministry that God actually gave us and said here, go with this is this right here. We've got a lot of different ministries that we do in the church. We call it the ministry of worship, the ministry of this, the ministry of that, and that's true. There's nothing wrong with that, because ministry basically means to serve. So there's all kind of ministries. But when you really look at what God gave us, he gave us the ministry of reconciliation and to me, if that's what he left us, if that's what he gave us, I need to understand what that means. If I'm given that ministry of reconciliation but I don't know what that means, how am I going to do it? So we're going to break that down just a little bit this morning. I'm going to pull one word out of it Reconciliation, or reconcile, or reconciling. What does that word reconcile? What does it really mean? I looked up the definition of it and you can look it up too and see. But this is what it says To change thoroughly, to exchange hostility for friendship. I love this part of it. To restore to favor. The only way you can restore to favor means you had to have favor in the first place. You can't restore somebody to something they were never a part of. So that little part right there can really go a long ways in talking about what we say, when we say the finished work or inclusion, because if you weren't included in it, you can't be restored back to it. So you could preach about five sermons out of this one verse right here, because if you weren't included in it, you can't be restored back to it. So you could preach about five sermons out of this one verse right here, just taking a few little verses. But to restore to favor. In classical Greek they used it like this Restoring relationships, whether it was marital relationships or friendships or whatever it was talked about when it was restoring relationships.
Speaker 1:This right here, in this aspect, is talking about restoring the relationship between God and humanity that was broken where In the garden, not because of what I've done, but because of whatever Christian believes, that Adam and Eve messed up. Their relationship was severed so much so that he kicked them out of the garden. Okay, so because of what Adam done, all of humanity was separated from God, according to what we teach. But then Jesus come along and said because of what I've done, all of humanity is included. We have a hard time believing that sometimes that's what we're teaching in a nutshell. We go off on a lot of different areas, but really that's what it comes down to is we are included when we say inclusion doctrine or inclusion theory or inclusion theology. What we're talking about is we were included with what he done on the cross. We weren't sitting back as spectators looking at it. We were actually included. We were co-killed, we were co-buried, we were co -raised and we were co-seated with him. That's simply all it means, and every Christian should believe that. They may not explain it the same way that we do we're just kind of breaking it down a little bit more, but it really means the same thing. I should see myself as included in what Christ did on the cross. So what's the context of this verse?
Speaker 1:In 2 Corinthians, paul is describing God's new creation work through Christ. Especially if you go back and read I read verse 19,. But if you go back and read 17 through 21,. Don't just isolate one verse, but kind of expand out. But if you go back and read 17 through 21, don't just isolate one verse, but kind of expand out a little bit. If you read 17 through 21, what it's going to tell you is that God took the initiative in restoring the relationship between himself and humanity. This act happened, it says, in Christ. What does that mean? It means that through Jesus' life, death and resurrection, through everything that Jesus done. This is how it happened.
Speaker 1:This reconciliation is not based on our efforts. It's not based on anything that we do, but on God's. I love the Ronnie. Can you pull that verse back up just a second? I love the end of this verse right here and sometimes we overlook this Not imputing their trespasses against them to them.
Speaker 1:So think about this a minute. The reconciliation process is not based on our effort, but it's based on God's refusal to count our trespasses against us. You are not reconciled to him because you're just an awesome person and you're just so holy you may be, but that's not what reconciled you to Christ. What reconciled you to him was the fact that he said I don't care how bad they are, I don't care what they've done, I refuse to hold this against them. There's a right there. That was the. That was the crux of reconciliation. It's not about your works, it's not about how good you are. It's about the fact that God said I will not hold anything against them. That's why that part of that verse is so important.
Speaker 1:We've got to understand why is he saying this? And you have to break those little pieces of this verse down and really start to get an understanding of it. So if you take the rest of this summer and say I'm going to learn one verse, learn this verse Really. Study this verse Really. Study this verse, not just this verse, but 17 through 21. It all fits there together.
Speaker 1:But really get an understanding of what this means and what it's saying, because this really means the gospel is not an invitation to escape punishment. That's the way we teach it. It's not an invitation to escape punishment but an announcement that reconciliation has already been accomplished. The reconciliation that God has given us has been accomplished through the works of Christ and not anything that we can do. It's not our decision. We don't like to hear that as Christians, because we like to think that we made a decision, and I always joke about it when somebody says well, you know, they found Jesus. Jesus was never lost. How do you find him? He's always been there. We just have to wake up to the fact that everything was finished and it was already done. So, real quick, let's just recap. I hate to do this, but I want to do it because I want you to hear some of the main points. I took all of last week's sermon, as long as it was, and narrowed it down into four little points Just to kind of get us back on where we were last week.
Speaker 1:If Jesus is the exact image of God as it says in Hebrews and Jesus never used threat of eternal torment Nowhere in the Bible he never used eternal torment Then why do we preach hellfire as part of the gospel? Now, if you want to preach it on a side note and say I think this is my belief of what happens, do that. You're free to do that. But to say that that is part of the gospel, the good news, is biblically inaccurate and I will argue with any pastor on that, because biblically it is not in there. Again, side note, if you want to preach it because you need an answer and that's usually what happens is we need an answer? I need to be able to tell somebody what happens if you don't awaken to what he done. I got to have this and they start preaching this. Fine, preach it like that, but don't say it's the gospel, because the gospel is good news. So Jesus never taught eternal conscious torment.
Speaker 1:He used the word Gehenna that we talked about last week. That's the word that he used over 11 times when he spoke. Okay, and we talked about last week. That's the word that he used over 11 times when he spoke. Okay, and we know from last week that Gehenna was a real valley. I was looking this morning as I had the words up and I told Cindy. I said we're probably the only church this morning that's got hell on our screen as we're doing praise and worship, because we had a picture of Gehenna up there.
Speaker 1:So he used that word. Why? Because it was a real place. It involved real people. Real situations were happening. Real people were being thrown in that valley during that time as sacrifices and stuff like that. There was a lot of stuff going on during that time.
Speaker 1:If you don't understand the time period and the historical context of what was going on, then that may not make sense to you. You may just say, oh, that's where everybody's going to go when they don't believe in God. He's going to cast them out into the valley, to the valley of fire, to the pit of fire. That's not what it was talking about. People were actually thrown in there and burned during that historical period, but there was a reason for it. So we have to understand that. So it was a real place, it was a real valley, but it was to warn the first century Jews about Jerusalem's coming destruction.
Speaker 1:Jesus was trying to tell these people, the Jews. He was trying to tell them listen, if you don't get your head on right, if you don't change the way you're thinking, if you keep lining up with everything that is contradictory to what I'm saying, then you're going to destroy yourself. And I'm trying to tell you get out of this, step out of this. I'm here now and what happened? The destruction of the temple, what he was predicting actually come to pass, okay, and it actually come to pass. 40 years after he said it, which was considered a generation. I know people get caught up on.
Speaker 1:He used the word generation a lot in the Bible. That was considered a generation and he said this will happen in this generation, not the generation in 2025. He said this generation and it happened within 40 years. You can't dispute that. I mean, that is so amazing. But if you don't understand the context of it, it don't make any sense to you. And if I don't understand something, I'll just make something up that sounds good and a lot of things. That's what we've done.
Speaker 1:He never warned the Gentiles about eternal conscience for men. He never warned the Gentiles about Gehenna. He never spoke with the Gentiles about it. Why? Because they never would have understood it. This was a Jewish history and if he would have went back and spoke to the Gentiles, the non-Jewish people, they wouldn't have had any understanding of what he was talking about. Nowhere in the Bible and I went back again last night and I was researching that and looking nowhere did he talk to the Gentiles about Gehenna, about hell.
Speaker 1:So hell as we know it was shaped by tradition. Terms like Gehenna and Hades and Sheol and Lake of Fire were mistranslated and are very, very misleading. Much of our imagery comes from, as we said last week, dante's Inferno, not Scripture. It's amazing, when you think about this, that Dante's Inferno, a fiction literature, shapes our theology more than the Bible does. That's scary Because it really does, because our whole theology has been built around heaven and hell, and half of that hell is shaped by a fiction book or a poem. It's not even shaped by what Jesus himself said.
Speaker 1:Fear-based gospel distorts God's character, making salvation more about escaping hell than anything else, and what it does is it replaces grace. Salvation is about grace. It replaces grace with fear, because we scare people and say if you don't want to burn you better get saved. Jesus wasn't threatening people. He never threatened people in the Bible. He was inviting them into a place of peace, into a place of love, into a new covenant.
Speaker 1:The last thing the cross reveals inclusion. I said that a while ago. The cross reveals inclusion, not condemnation. 2 Corinthians, 5 and 19,. Again, god was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting sins against us. The resurrection launched new creation. It did not launch Eternal punishment. When he resurrected from death, he says a new beginning has arrived. You can step into this now. You can awaken to this truth, or you can keep living over here In the law, which in the law? The law brings death, but resurrection brings life. When you're resurrected, you come back to life.
Speaker 1:So the real gospel is not turn and burn. Turn or burn that's not what it's about. And we preach that. We try to scare people with that. That's not what it's about. And we preach that we try to scare people with that. That's not what it is. It's simply come home. Come home. You've already been included. Love has the final word. This is a different way to look at stuff.
Speaker 1:Wednesday night we had a good discussion on it. We talked a little bit about what we preached on Sunday. There were a lot of questions that were asked. I want people to ask questions. I'm not saying this because I'm demanding you that you agree with what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Listen, tradition is a hard thing to let go of. It is difficult to let go of something that I've heard all of my life. But at some point we've got to say we are intelligent enough and we are mature enough to hold on to this. But then let something else come in here and let's compare it. Compare it and contrast it against each other and contrast it against the Word of God. That's all we're doing.
Speaker 1:And when you do that, and you do that honestly, the truth's going to come out. The truth is going to be revealed to you. It's not because I say it, but a revelation is going to come and you're going to start seeing and you're going to start asking some questions. And when you ask those questions, you've got to go in there and answer them. And the more you dig and the more you look and try to answer those questions, the more you start saying, wow, man, I was taught so much stuff that just wasn't sounded good but it wasn't biblical. That's hard to stand at a pulpit and say that, but it's the truth. So let's transition now to the question that we're going to look at today and we're going to kind of tackle today why does this really matter? What difference does it make Our view of hell? In my opinion, our view of hell shapes our view of God. Think about that. The way I view hell shapes my view of the way I view the Father, and the way I view the Father shapes the way I view hell, the way I used to look at God and the way I used to think about God.
Speaker 1:I had no problem believing in an eternal conscious torment. I had no problem believing that if you didn't get on your knees somewhere and ask Him into your life and let Him come in and be your Lord and Savior, that God was going to cast you into hell and you were going to burn forever Conscious. You've got to remember that, forever Conscious. You got to remember that. Do dead people feel anything? I'm just going to chase a rabbit right here. Do dead people feel anything? But when you go to this place, you're going to feel it forever, right? Is that what we teach? So you're not really going to be dead, I'm just thinking out loud. So, therefore, you're going on forever in torment. That's the kind of things I look at and say that don't make sense, just don't make any sense to me. And then I dive in there and I start pulling these scriptures apart and say you know, let's look at them, let's break them apart. So our view of hell shapes our view of God. What you believe about hell reveals what you believe about God's nature.
Speaker 1:If I believe in a place where there's people that's just sitting down there burning forever and can't do anything about it, my opinion of the Father changes, mine. I'm not putting that on you. I'm saying my opinion of the Father changes. If you had a child and your child did something wrong and you built a pit outside and threw your child in there and burned your child, number one, you would be arrested and number two, people would call you a monster. But yet God does it and it's okay, something to think about. We wouldn't do it as a natural father, but it's okay for the spiritual father to do it. Should we not be doing the same thing that we see the father doing? Jesus says I only do what I see the Father do. Jesus never threw anybody in a pit and burned them. So I look at that and say he's only doing what he sees the Father do. He preached kingdom. He preached peace. He preached love. That's why it's so hard for me to preach this, because, man, my mind starts going. I start thinking about so much.
Speaker 1:If we're going to believe that God sends people to a place of eternal torment, then you're okay. If you want to believe that, you have the right to, I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise If that's what you want to grab on to. But here's the thing. If you choose to believe that, there's a couple of things that you're going to have to wrestle with. Is love compatible with torture? Do love and torture go together? I mean, that's like walking in and somebody hugging them saying I love you and nailing them. That's not love. You don't beat on people that you love. You don't kill people that you love.
Speaker 1:Look at 1 John 4, verse 8. Because we talk about love, we can't skip over this verse right here. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. That verse needs no explanation. We don't need to dig into that. God is love. How can perfect love, which God is, he's perfect love. How can perfect love coexist with eternal punishment without end love. In the Bible.
Speaker 1:This word in the Greek is agape with eternal punishment without end Love. In the Bible. This word in the Greek is agape Self-giving, compassionate, merciful and seeks the good of others. It talks about that in 1 Corinthians 13 and John chapter 3. It talks about that God's love is also just. There's your answer that most people give yes, he is love, but he is also just.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to think too, as I walk through this. I'm trying to think about what people's going to say If you was to walk up and talk to them about this message. What kind of response are they going to give you? And that's the number one response yes, he's love, but he's also a just God. What does that mean? Just when you actually look it up, it means to uphold moral order and holiness.
Speaker 1:Endless torture implies infinite suffering with no hope of relief or redemption. It is unending punishment. It's not going to stop. You might think I'm kind of over-exaggerating when I'm talking about this, but this is what we teach. This is truly what we teach. It's never going to end If you go to hell and you. We teach it's never going to end If you go to hell and you start burning, it's never going to end, it's unending punishment and it serves no restorative purpose. He's a God of restoration.
Speaker 1:So I'm saying these things not to try to confuse anybody. I'm saying these things because what try to confuse anybody? I'm saying these things because what we're teaching and what we're saying to me does not line up with the nature of who he is, and I battle with that. I struggle with that. I have to find the answers to that, because it just don't line up. And I said, well ago, years ago, it would have lined up because I didn't have a true understanding of who the father was. Just don't line up. And I said, well, years ago it would have lined up because I didn't have a true understanding of who the Father was. I was born again according to church tradition. I'd been to the altar, I said the prayer, I was baptized. I had great men and women of God lay hands on me and prophesy over me and tell me I was going to do this and you've got a ministry calling in you and you've got this and you've got that. I had all that done. I chased all these people around, but there was something that I didn't realize then. That was missing and it was a true understanding of who God was.
Speaker 1:And it will flip your world upside down when you start going into this. It really will. Endless torture implies infinite, infinite suffering. I just want to keep saying that because we need to understand unending punishment. Can a God who says love your enemies be the same one who says I'm going to burn mine? He says love your enemies, right? Jesus even talks about how often do we forgive? Seventy times seven. We just keep forgiving. When somebody wrongs you, when somebody does something against you, forgive, turn the other cheek, keep forgiving, keep forgiving. But then that's coming from a God who says if they're against me, I'm going to burn them. I have a hard time with that. Look at Luke 6 and 35. But love your enemies. Love your enemies, do good and lend, hoping for nothing in return, and your reward will be great and you will be sons of the Most High.
Speaker 1:For he is kind. Surely this is not part of the Bible here. He is kind to the unthankful and the evil, to the unthankful and the evil To the unthankful. That means those who are not awakened yet, those who don't see how good he is, those who reject His love, those who reject what Jesus has done on the cross. He is kind to those and he is even kind to the evil one. What's evil? Eat what you want. We all know evil people. You may not know them personally, but there's evil people out there. Okay, whatever your definition is of evil, he's kind to them.
Speaker 1:According to this verse, if Jesus reveals the exact image of the Father, as it says in Hebrews, and he forgives His enemies, even to the point of when he was on the cross, all the way to the end, some might say, well, when he was walking around, he was just a good person. He was on the cross All the way to the end. Some might say, well, when he was walking around, he was just a good person, he was forgiving people. No, he forgave. On the cross, he said forgive them, father, for they know not what they do. So even up until the very end, he was still forgiven and he is the exact image of the Father. How does that compare with the idea of God turning around and eternally tormenting His enemies?
Speaker 1:I would love to have a room full of pastors and ask these questions, not to debate them, but just. You know, I wish I could have a mute button where they couldn't say nothing, but just ask the questions and make them think and then say write your response down and turn it in. How do you take this information that's right here in the Bible saying love your enemies? Jesus is saying love your enemies and then he turns around and says I'm the exact image of the Father. Whatever I do, the Father does. Whatever I say is what the Father said Love your enemies, love those who are unthankful, be kind to those who are evil, but oh yeah, my Father's going to burn you. It don't match up. Jesus loved his enemies all the way to the end, but the traditional hell doctrine says the Father torments his enemies all the way to the end, but the traditional hell doctrine says the Father torments his enemies without him.
Speaker 1:There's something to think on I'm just giving you a couple of things here that if you go into Word and you start comparing the actual Bible the written Word of God, not the Word, because Jesus is the Word, but the written Word of God, not the Word, because Jesus is the Word, but the written Word of God and then you take the written Word of God and you take traditional teaching and turn them to face each other, they don't look the same, and it's tough to preach this, as you can see, with the empty seats. This is tough. It's hard to wrap your mind around something that has never been taught in a lot of churches because we're so hung up on tradition. So here's the question that some of you may be asking what if I don't agree with this? What if I choose to hold on to the hell that I was taught? You have that right. You can do that. You can choose to hold on to everything that you were taught in the past. But what's going to happen? You can realize that our choices something always comes on the other end of our choices you may end up focusing on judgment more than you focus on love.
Speaker 1:When talking to others. You may paint a picture of God that feels more like an angry father than a loving father. You have the right to hold on to it, but also, salvation becomes more about avoiding fire than awakening to life, and that's what he wanted. He said I want you to awaken now, here and now, to the kingdom that's within you. I want you to awaken to life here. Not get saved so you can escape hell when you die, but do it so you can awaken to what you can do right now To lie, because when our view of hell is distorted, when we have a wrong image of hell, the gospel becomes distorted. It becomes a message built on shame, built on fear, religion instead of fear, religion instead of grace, love and transformation.
Speaker 1:This I was writing this and going through some of this and changing stuff up and on and I began to think about what is people thinking when they hear this? What is people thinking when they hear that we're teaching something totally contradictory to what they've always been taught? And I think a lot of people say it's hard for me to grab onto this because I feel like I'm doubting what I've always been taught. I feel like I'm doubting what grandma and granddaddy taught me. I feel like I'm doubting what my spiritual father or mother poured into me. And it's hard to do that because I don't want to doubt where I come from. I don't want to doubt what somebody poured into me, but I don't think it's doubting. I think it's about going deep with God. As we ask questions, we experience His love and grace more fully.
Speaker 1:Challenging traditional teaching doesn't mean we're being rebellious, and I think that's what a lot of Christians feel like. If I believe this. If I grab onto this, if I even entertain this thought that you're talking about, then I'm being rebellious to the Word of God. But I don't think it's being rebellious. I think it means we're willing to go deeper in the pursuit of truth. What is truth? What does that mean? What is the Bible really saying? What is God really intending when he said whatever it was? Whatever Scripture you're reading, what was the true intent? What was the true heart of God?
Speaker 1:Have you ever thought about the other things that people may say when they hear this message, why it's so hard for people to let go of this hell doctrine that's been taught for so long? I think also, for many of us, it's just the fear of being wrong. What if I'm wrong? What if I grab onto this message here? What if it's wrong? And the fear of being wrong outweighs the desire to explore deeper truth. I would just rather just believe what's always been taught, settle with that and I'm good. Why? Because I'm born again and if I go tomorrow, I know where I'm going. It's real simple. We keep it simple and it works for people, because that's people that don't want to always go deeper into it. But if we choose to go deeper, then we're going to experience some questions that have to be answered Because they're going to drive you nuts until you get an answer.
Speaker 1:So that fear that a lot of people have it's understandable. I can see their point. I can truly see where they're coming from, because afterlife feels like something we can't afford to guess on. It's serious, we can't afford to guess on. It's serious. We can't afford to sit here and play with this and that's what a lot of people will tell you at an evangelistic crusade. You can't afford to walk away from here and not know. You better know that. You know that you know before you leave this tent. That's the message that's so often preached, and my only one who's heard that is that true? That's what's often preached. We've got to know, and we've got to know now. So I understand the hesitation in it because it's important.
Speaker 1:But here's the thing Fear of punishment is never what Jesus used to draw people in. He used love, and the ones that he drew in was not the ones that most Christians were walking around drawing in. That was the ones that they were outcasts. Christians were trying to stay away from them. And then Jesus walks on the scene and he just flips everything upside down. He didn't just flip table. He flipped everything upside down because the people were pushing this one out and pushing this one out because you're wrong over here, you've done this. And you're out here sleeping with people and you've been married seven different times and you've done. Jesus walks in and says Come on, you've just been. Come on, you've done this. Come on, you that they're just looking at and saying you ain't worth nothing. Come on, come with me, follow me. He come with a totally different message than what the Pharisees were preaching and demonstrating, which is exactly why, when he come onto the scene, he said repent, change your thinking, because if you keep lining up with what they're teaching, you're going to destroy yourself. That's what he was telling the Jewish people, and it happened. That's what he was telling the Jewish people, and it happened.
Speaker 1:It's also the fact that we've been so conditioned in churches. No matter what church you come up in, no matter what denomination you grew up in whether it was Baptist or non-denomination or Methodist or whatever Church of God, it don't matter We've been so conditioned in churches to believe certain things. If you were raised in a church where hell was the main focus, it becomes part of your spiritual DNA. It's all about heaven and hell. It's hard to unlearn what you've always been taught Hear what it is. But especially when it comes to biblical stuff or what we think is biblical stuff, and we learn that We've been taught that for so long, it's conditioned into us. It's hard to unlearn that, it's hard to let go of that. But the Spirit leads us into all truth, not just what we inherited.
Speaker 1:Jesus said in Matthew 5, you've heard it said, listen to this. You've heard it said, but I say to you can I tell you this morning you've heard it said. But I say to you, can I tell you this morning? You've heard it said, but now Jesus is showing you something totally contradictory to what you've always heard said Even the most sacred traditions out there must be held up to the light of Christ. And when we hold them up to the light of Christ, do they hold any weight anymore? And I'm finding out on a personal level that they don't. Again, I can't. What I believe is not going to influence what you believe, because there's things I believe that change all the time. Because I study more, I see something different that I've never seen before. Revelation comes. God shows you something in the Word. He pulls something out of that verse that you've never seen in it before. And our minds continue to grow. So we're learning every day and we're growing every day.
Speaker 1:Hopefully, could it be that hell is also used as a form of control and behavior management? Think about that. Let's be honest a minute. Hell has been used to scare people into obedience for many, many centuries. It's a powerful motivator and what it does is it keeps people in line, it keeps people coming to church, it keeps people paying tithe and offering. It keeps people in a certain specific order that the church wants them to be in.
Speaker 1:And morally, if you look at it from a moral standpoint, what's the purpose of it? Just to keep people in check. And it does that morally because I can look at somebody who just left church and they got their Sunday best on and you go up the boat rides after church and you can walk in there and you can see people that's just come from church and you can see they just come from church. And then you can see other people that just come out in the garden or just come off work. You can see the difference in people and I don't care how much you try to say. You look and you say, well, they just come from church, they didn't go to church this morning.
Speaker 1:So morally we can the things we've been taught. Why? Because the way we dress and stuff like that becomes a part of the tradition of church. Listen, those pastors I've been under I wouldn't award, they would not have allowed me to get in the pulpit with these jeans on or this on. I mean, that just wouldn't have happened. You had to dress a certain way, you had to hold yourself to certain standards, and nothing wrong with that morally, if you choose to do that, but that's what it is. It's a traditional thing, so it is. It's a powerful, powerful motivator. But that's really a behavior contract. It's not heart transformation. I'm trying to motivate people to change their behavior.
Speaker 1:Jesus didn't use fear to control people. Nowhere in the Bible will you see that he led with love. He just loved on people, and that was it. True change doesn't come from being scared into obedience. It comes when people feel love. Fear can force behavior, there's no doubt about it. Fear can force behavior, but only love can truly change the heart. You're never going to force anybody into change. People tried it. People still try it. It don't work. This is the last thing I'll say about why I think it's so hard for people to let go of what they've always been taught. I say this to last, because I really believe this may be the biggest one.
Speaker 1:We want to have a neat theology that makes sense right here in a box, and it makes sense here in a box, and it makes sense and it's simple. That's what we want. We want simplicity, and hell creates closure. Hell creates this simplicity for us and this closure. What do I mean by that? It helps people sort the saved from the unsaved, kind of like I said, when we walk in the boat ride, I can see church, no church, real simple. So that's what this does. Right here too, hell creates closure for people. It gives the gospel a very clear answer to those who don't believe. If you don't believe, you don't have to guess what's going to happen. We know this keeps it really really simple.
Speaker 1:Good people go there. Bad people go there. About as simple as you can get. Good people heaven. Bad people hell. If we was teaching this to five year olds, that's what we would say. Good people, peace and joy. Bad people hot fire. That's the bible. To a five year old fire. That's the Bible to a five-year-old.
Speaker 1:But Jesus did things a little bit different. He welcomed the sinners and he challenged the believers. That's what we're doing. When you walk in that door in the back and you look to the wall on the right, it says everyone, welcome Everyone. Drug addicts, they're welcome. Alcoholics, they're welcome. People who, by church standards, are not born again, they're welcome. Because it goes on to say because nobody's perfect and anything is possible, jesus done things different too. He welcomed sinners, he challenged believers. That's what we're doing. We're challenging I hope everybody in this room is a believer. We are challenging you as a believer to go deeper. That's it. I'm not trying to force your belief. I'm not trying to tell you to do this or do that or believe this or believe that. I'm challenging what you believe and just say go deeper.
Speaker 1:The gospel was never meant to be neat. It was meant to be transformative. Sometimes we need to let go of what's neat. Sometimes we need to just embrace what's true. Do you know why the disciples keep in mind they were students of Jesus. Do you know why they did not teach the hell doctrine that we teach today and again? If you don't believe me on that. That's fine. Go through there and research that yourself. The disciples never taught on this hell doctrine and there was a reason why, besides the fact that Jesus didn't teach them, why, besides the fact that Jesus didn't teach them, the source that we use to teach this, the source that this idea comes from, was not available to the disciples. They taught in the first, second century. The idea, the source that we get this idea from, did not come along until a couple centuries later. They did not have the hell doctrine because the idea of the hell doctrine, where we get it from, was not even around during their time. They did not have the understanding of dante's inferno style hell. It wasn't there. Why? Because it was not developed until centuries later. The early church did not teach on it, but it has become the foundation of the current church.
Speaker 1:You have to ask yourself why Everyone and I'm going to get ready to close right here, Thank you, yeah, I'm going to try. I'm going to try. I lost my place. I was trying to look down. What was the last thing I said? There you go, okay, talking about the disciples. And we teach in every church, every denomination, don't matter what you are. We teach that we want everybody to have faith, okay. But here's the problem Fear-based faith is not the answer. If we're trying to get people to have faith because of fear, is that the right answer? For centuries, people have been taught you're saved from hell. That's the whole point. Right. Just get saved from hell. That's all we want to do. But fear doesn't produce love. It produces anxiety and superficial religion. It produces spiritual burnout because we're always trying to strive and work to be better.
Speaker 1:Last verse, 1 John 4 and 18, says perfect love casts out fear. We already established in the other verse that perfect love is God Right. Perfect love casts out fear. This verse confronts the very core of fear-based theology. It tells us fear and I asked this question earlier and I'm going to show you fear and love are incompatible earlier. And I'm going to show you Fear and love are incompatible. Is it true love? If you make me, if you force me, I might tell you I love you all day if you force me. But is it true love? No, I'm doing it because I don't want a consequence out of it. We see that in marriages all the time, some broken marriages where some women feel forced they want to stay in this thing because I don't want the consequence. It can't be. Fear and love are incompatible.
Speaker 1:When we choose to rethink hell, we're not becoming soft on sin, and that's one of the things people think we're not saying we're soft on sin. We're becoming clear on love. We're really diving down and saying what does it mean to truly love like Jesus loved? What does that look like? The Gospel becomes good news again. If the Gospel is turn or burn, it's not good news, it's manipulation. What if we kept the good news simple and preached the gospel like this God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. You were included in Christ before you even believed. He chose you before the foundation of the world to Himself. You were included in Christ before you even believed. He chose you before the foundation of the world. You are loved, you are forgiven and you are welcomed. What if we just said that when we think like this, we don't give people a fear-based message. We give them good news. That's really good. Not good news and calling it good news but it's really bad. It's good news. God loves you, he chose you. You are welcome. He wants you. You're part of this family. Sharing the good news is how people grow. People don't grow and change out of fear. We grow when we truly understand who we are and we see God for who he really is.
Speaker 1:When we assume someone is bound for hell, what happens sometimes? We harden our hearts toward them. You don't have to admit that, but sometimes we do. We harden our hearts toward some people that we think is just. I mean, they're just waiting on the gates of hell to open up Because they are going straight there. And we see them like that Rather than seeing them as somebody who Christ chose before the foundation of the world and that he came to seek and to save, according to Luke. We may start to view them with suspicion instead of love. We may choose to argue with suspicion instead of love. We may choose to argue with them instead of listening to them, oftentimes eager to correct them rather than connect with them.
Speaker 1:Jesus drew near to sinners with compassion. He never drew near to them with condemnation. It was always with compassion, with understanding, with love. If we forget that, we risk standing at a distance when God is calling us to draw near to people. But what's the church done? We push back Now. If you come in here, we'll love on you, but out there in the world. A lot of times we've distanced ourselves. But if we believe that no one, no one, is beyond reach of grace, it changes the way we love, the way we listen and the way we serve. When fear stops shaping our view of God, grace and compassion will shape our view of others and it's amazing what can happen. It sets people free from fear. It sets people free to heal. It sets people free to truly grab on to the truth.
Speaker 1:And, let's be honest, some of us were raised in churches where we were terrified of dying Because we just didn't. You may be in church every Sunday, but every Sunday you just didn't know if you was truly saved or not, because there was always something else coming along. And if you did that and you did that, you better get back to the altar. So we never knew. We always live life wondering if we've done enough. If I was to go today, did I make a mistake that I forgot to repent for? Come on, y'all have heard these messages. We were terrified of death. We prayed salvation prayers out of panic, not peace. We served God a lot of times simply out of obligation and not out of love.
Speaker 1:But rethinking hell can bring freedom to those burdened by religious trauma. It's scary and sad that we use trauma and church in the same sentence. Sometimes those people have been traumatized by church. They've been traumatized by religion and tradition, but rethinking hell can restore a wounded view of God's character, while opening up the door to a deeper faith. You can go ahead and stand. We're going to end right here. But just because I said we're going to end, don't close your ears up right here, because this is important If the message you were taught in church coming up left you living in fear, or the image of God that you carry today has wounded you more than it's healed you.
Speaker 1:If you've ever dared to ask and I've done this could God be more loving than I've been told? Could there really be more to this than what I've been told? The answer is yes, always going to be yes. That's you. I think it's time we focus on the one who didn't come to condemn the world, but to reveal the truth. You are already loved, you're already included and you're already His.
Speaker 1:If you were here Wednesday night, I gave out a handout. If you weren't here Wednesday night, you missed out. I gave out a handout. If you wasn't here Wednesday night, you missed out. I gave out a handout that asked questions about a lot of the stuff that we're talking about and they gave the answer in there, biblically Biblical answer, not my answer Through the Word. And if you want one of those, I'll get it to you, let me know, but I only want to answer one question off of those. I'll get it to you, let me know, but I only want to answer one question off of there.
Speaker 1:I want to go over one question because it's the question that so many people are going to ask. This is the number one question you're going to get if you start repeating the things that I'm saying in here and you start saying the same thing on the outside. Here's the number one question you're going to get asked Are you saying hell doesn't exist? The number one question. So are you saying you don't believe in hell? Because I've already been asked that many times and my answer is that's not what I'm saying. I believe in hell. I just don't believe in the hell that we've always been taught. Jesus spoke about Gehenna, a real place symbolizing destruction, but he never spoke about eternal, conscious torment. Hell isn't God's torture chamber. It's the tragic outcome of rejecting love, rejecting peace and rejecting truth. So it's not divine punishment, but the natural consequences that follow resisting the things of God.