SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: That was uh uncomfortable for me.
SPEAKER_00: So if we haven't met yet, my name is Ryan.
SPEAKER_00: I am one of the pastors on Sabbath Spring Lake.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the pastor over family ministries.
SPEAKER_00: So I get to work with our teenagers and the kids' ministry team here.
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to uh put it out there if you uh are or somebody who has a middle schooler or high schooler, or if you have friends or family that live in the area and have middle school or high school, we are gonna be trying to launch a student ministry here on Wednesday nights over the school year September through May.
SPEAKER_00: So I'd love to talk to you about that.
SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to get involved or help be involved in that or bring someone, um I'll be sticking around after the service.
SPEAKER_00: Um I did not grow up in this area.
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in Stevens Point, Go to Muggs, and when I was in high school, a nearby town, just uh not too far away, had a local church that every year hosted an event around Halloween called The Nightmare.
SPEAKER_00: And the commercials, the radio ads, sounded something like this.
SPEAKER_00: Coming this October, the nightmare.
SPEAKER_00: And there was creepy music playing in the background.
SPEAKER_00: And it was like a Christian haunted house, to be honest with you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't raise your hand if you've been to something like this or if you put on something like this.
SPEAKER_00: But when I was in high school, I did not want to go.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, no way, no jose.
SPEAKER_00: But then when I was in college at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, go dogs, um, I thought maybe I'm courageous enough to go.
SPEAKER_00: So me and my buddies, we go, we stand in line for what felt like forever listening to the creepy music, and get into this sort of like warehouse that has been transformed for this event.
SPEAKER_00: And there's this, there are performers, you know, putting on this thing, there's a drill sergeant just kind of yelling at us the whole time, so you're you're kind of feeling on edge, and they would walk us bit by bit through these various rooms where in every different room we saw a different scene of someone dying in a really graphic way.
SPEAKER_00: People would engage in kind of dangerous or illicit activities, and at some point you're walking through this room like they would die.
SPEAKER_00: It was kind of jarring.
SPEAKER_00: And then we would move through the rooms, and we get to the final room where we were in what was supposed to be hell itself.
SPEAKER_00: We're in the middle of this room, and there were cages along the outsides of the room, and people, performers, dressed up, like clawing out at us through the cages and yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs, and scary music playing, and like kind of flames being depicted, and demonic kind of creatures, and it was very unsettling.
SPEAKER_00: And then finally, we move into this last room where the lights get brighter, and they showed us a video about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: How if you believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then you don't have to go to hell.
SPEAKER_00: And I gotta tell you, I was already a Christian at the time, and the whole thing made me feel a bit uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: Uncomfortable with the tactic, sort of the fear tactic, and I'll say a little bit more about that, but also just uncomfortable at the thought of people being in hell for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: It to this day makes me feel uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: So as we were getting ready to do this series this summer and we were asked to pick something to talk about, I thought, okay, this makes me uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it makes you uncomfortable as well.
SPEAKER_00: And especially if you grew up in a church that talked a lot about hell that way, or maybe you even came to know Jesus in that kind of setting, uh, maybe you've done what I've done.
SPEAKER_00: I'll just kind of lay my cards on the table.
SPEAKER_00: I think I've probably swung the pendulum too far the other way at times, um, and not talking very much about hell.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've you know been coming to Spring Lake and attending for any number of weeks, you've probably noticed that we don't often get up here in front and like pound the pulpit and say, You're going to hell, unless you repent and believe in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Part of that's because we know that fear of hell will not sustain a lifelong relationship with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what God wants is a relationship with you.
SPEAKER_00: He loves you.
SPEAKER_00: He wants that now and for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: So we know fear ultimately doesn't do that long term.
SPEAKER_00: It can drive people towards Jesus, but it won't sustain that kind of relationship.
SPEAKER_00: But then also it's because we've seen abuses and fear tactics used to sort of like scare people into being followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So we don't want to do that, but at the same time, that means that sometimes I'm a little bit hesitant to speak boldly about hell.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible speaks pretty clearly about hell.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus talked actually a lot about hell.
SPEAKER_00: And so if we're gonna understand what scripture teaches, then we need to know on what it says about hell.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what we're gonna be spending our time in this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And if you have the U Version Bible app on your phone, you can find the notes there.
SPEAKER_00: We are gonna be jumping around to a number of different Bible passages this morning, so it might be hard.
SPEAKER_00: You can try keeping up with me if you're flipping around, that'd be great.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but the notes are on there as well.
SPEAKER_00: I want to begin with an overview of the biblical storyline and where hell fits into that story.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, he created the entire universe good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, sometimes good, and he made human beings in his image to rule over the earth alongside him in his presence.
SPEAKER_00: And he intended to give them eternal life, that they would live forever with him on this good creation.
SPEAKER_00: The first human beings, they disobeyed God.
SPEAKER_00: They rebelled against him, they said we want to do things our own way, Adam and Eve, and so the whole world was plunged into chaos and death.
SPEAKER_00: And all human beings after Adam and Eve, we are kind of cut off from the Garden of Eden, and we we die.
SPEAKER_00: We die because of our sin.
SPEAKER_00: Well, God enacts a rescue plan to restore things to the way that it should be through this guy, Abraham and his family.
SPEAKER_00: They grow into the nation of Israel, and God's working with this people, and he's gonna bring salvation and rescue through them.
SPEAKER_00: Turns out they're just as messed up as everybody else.
SPEAKER_00: So eventually God says, you know what, I will do it myself.
SPEAKER_00: And God, second person of the Trinity, Jesus, becomes a human being.
SPEAKER_00: He lives a life that we can never live, he dies the death that we deserve to die in our place, provides rescue for anyone who believes in him.
SPEAKER_00: And then the Bible talks about how one day Jesus is gonna return and he's gonna set everything right.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna do away with all wickedness and evil and injustice, gonna wipe it away from his good creation.
SPEAKER_00: And those who have aligned themselves with Jesus, place their faith in him, they will spend eternity with him in a new creation and be glorious.
SPEAKER_00: But those who have aligned themselves against God, have rejected Jesus, they are a part of the problem that God needs to set right in this world.
SPEAKER_00: And so they'll be removed from the good creation and spend eternity in hell.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way the biblical storyline sort of unfolds and where hell finds its place in that storyline.
SPEAKER_00: Now, again, the idea of people suffering for eternity is uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's led some people to uh modify, I would say twist the clear teaching of Scripture in a couple ways when it comes to how we think about hell.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to lay out three positions for you.
SPEAKER_00: The first two, I believe, are deviations or aberrations of what the clear biblical teaching on hell is.
SPEAKER_00: There's the screen right here.
SPEAKER_00: The first uh view is called universalism.
SPEAKER_00: Universalism is the idea that everyone will eventually be saved.
SPEAKER_00: That God's judgment may be temporary, some would say on this view, but eventually, if you go a million years into the future, everyone will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: If you were paying attention to uh books and authors, Christian authors in the early 2010s, you might remember Rob Bell, who wrote a book called Love Wins, sort of challenging the traditional notion of hell and saying, well, maybe it's possible for people to be saved even after they die.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the traditional view of hell is not totally correct.
SPEAKER_00: Or if you remember the Shack, the book The Shack, very popular, it sort of had universalist vibes, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll say if you're on YouTube or listening to podcasts and you're listening to anyone who would call themselves an ex-vangelical or someone who's like deconstructing their faith, oftentimes a part of that journey involves a rejection of the traditional view of hell.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe saying, like, well, maybe God's not really like that, maybe that's not really the way we should be reading scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And you can see why this position is attractive, but as we're gonna see, I think it ignores the clear teaching of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: So that's universalism.
SPEAKER_00: The second view is called annihilationism.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: Big word, annihilationism.
SPEAKER_00: Annihilate means to destroy.
SPEAKER_00: And this view is the idea that those who die apart from Christ will cease to exist.
SPEAKER_00: That they won't continue on for eternity, but they will eventually cease to exist.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes this view is also called conditional immortality.
SPEAKER_00: The idea being that not every human is immortal, lives forever, but God grants immortality to those who are saved.
SPEAKER_00: Those who are not saved simply cease to exist.
SPEAKER_00: They perish, and that is their natural state.
SPEAKER_00: This is the official teaching of the Seventh-day Adventists, so the Church of Jesus Christ, the Latter-day Saints, and the Jehovah's Witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: So they would hold to annihilationism.
SPEAKER_00: And I would say a growing number of evangelicals, so-called evangelicals, are gravitating towards annihilationism.
SPEAKER_00: And you can understand why.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you were paying attention a couple months ago, Kirk Cameron, who's a podcaster and influencer, that sort of thing, he got into a little bit of hot water because he said, I think that he he holds this view now, or at least is very open to it, and kind of raised a debate amongst a couple different folks on his channel.
SPEAKER_00: And so you can see this conversation going on today.
SPEAKER_00: Again, you can understand why this is an attractive position, but I think again, it ignores some clear passages in scripture we're gonna look at.
SPEAKER_00: So the third and final view up there is has been the majority position of Christians throughout church history.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it is eternal conscious punishment.
SPEAKER_00: Those who die apart from Christ will suffer for eternity in hell.
SPEAKER_00: And what's entailed by those words, eternal conscious punishment, is that hell is never ending, that those in hell are aware of what's happening to them, and that hell is the just consequence for their sin and rebellion against God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, hell is a real place, it's not a figment of our imagination, it's not a mental state, it is a real place.
SPEAKER_00: But unlike later cartoonish depictions of hell, say like in Dante's Inferno or Farside cartoons, the Bible actually gives us very little details about hell.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't give us literalistic descriptions of hell.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, what we find in Scripture are a series of images using metaphors and using symbols.
SPEAKER_00: And these symbols are meant to communicate real things, like realities, but it's communicated to us in symbols.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to walk us through the three main images for hell that communicate this terrible reality.
SPEAKER_00: The first main image is this: it's destruction.
SPEAKER_00: Hell is depicted as destruction.
SPEAKER_00: You'll also see the language of perishing or dying or being ruined or destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: So, for instance, you might see in the book of Psalms, Psalm 1, verse 6, says, The Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.
SPEAKER_00: Not hell, it doesn't say, but it leads to destruction.
SPEAKER_00: Or a very popular Bible verse, many of us will know, John 3.16, that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't say shall not go to hell, but says shall not perish, but have eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 6.23, for the wages of sin is death.
SPEAKER_00: Death, but the gift of God is eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: Or we find this in 2 Peter 3, verse 7, speaking of the judgment.
SPEAKER_00: By the same word, the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and the destruction of the ungodly.
SPEAKER_00: So this is a main, very common image in the Bible to speak of hell as destruction.
SPEAKER_00: Now you can understand why that's led some people to gravitate towards annihilationism.
SPEAKER_00: It seems like it says right there in the Bible that the wicked, those who apart from God, they will just simply be destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: They'll cease to exist.
SPEAKER_00: But if you think about the way that we use the language of destruction, just in our everyday language, you will see that it doesn't necessarily mean something ceases to exist.
SPEAKER_00: So for instance, if you were talking about a house fire, you might say the house was utterly destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: It burned to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: It was completely and totally destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: What you don't mean, you don't mean that the molecules and atoms that comprise the house popped out of existence, that they ceased to exist.
SPEAKER_00: What you mean is that the house was reduced to a pile of charred ashes, that for all intents and purposes, it no longer exists as a house.
SPEAKER_00: It has been totally and completely ruined, it cannot be used.
SPEAKER_00: It's beyond repair.
SPEAKER_00: And I think the similar logic is happening here in the Bible in this language of destruction.
SPEAKER_00: It goes something like this: that God is the ultimate source of life, flourishing, abundance, and his original design is that we would live in communion with him forever, imaging him, flourishing, thriving.
SPEAKER_00: And when we sin against him, we cut ourselves off from the very source of life itself.
SPEAKER_00: So when Scripture is talking about God destroying the wicked, sometimes, especially in the Old Testament, I would say it's just talking on the physical plane, that God exercises judgment in this life on the wicked and they simply die.
SPEAKER_00: That's true.
SPEAKER_00: But in the New Testament, specifically, you'll see the language of destruction, perishing, usually to refer to eschatological judgment or end times judgment.
SPEAKER_00: And that's how we should think of hell as destruction.
SPEAKER_00: Those in hell are cut off from God's life, and they are ruined and corrupted to the point that they no longer image God as they ought to.
SPEAKER_00: C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis was very into, or I guess emphasized the way that our choices form us as human beings.
SPEAKER_00: He would say something like, you know, the choices that we make make you kind of more into a heavenly creature or more and more into a hellish creature.
SPEAKER_00: And Tim Keller, who's a pastor-author who's now passed away, he was sort of riffing off of Lewis in a book called The Reason for God, talking about hell, and he says this about hell.
SPEAKER_00: He says, even in this life, we can see the kind of soul disintegration that self-centeredness creates.
SPEAKER_00: We know how selfishness and self-absorption leads to piercing bitterness, nauseating envy, paralyzing anxiety, paranoid thoughts, and the mental denials and distortions that accompany them.
SPEAKER_00: Now, ask the question: what if when we die, we don't end, but spiritually our life extends on into eternity?
SPEAKER_00: Hell then is the trajectory of a soul living a self-absorbed, self-centered life, going on and on forever.
SPEAKER_00: In short, hell is simply one's freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory into infinity.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a helpful way of conceptualizing hell as destruction, ruining people who are made in God's image.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the first main image of hell in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: The second main image of hell in the Bible, or image for hell in the Bible, is that of torment.
SPEAKER_00: We see an image of torment, and you'll see this communicated in symbols like fire, the fiery lake of burning sulfur, the weeping and gnashing of teeth.
SPEAKER_00: You'll see this language appear.
SPEAKER_00: So, one of the most important passages, I believe, for our understanding of hell in the New Testament comes from Matthew 25.
SPEAKER_00: Beginning at verse 41 to 46, we see Jesus has told this story of the coming judgment when he'll return, and people have to give an account of their lives before him.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll read verses 41 to 46.
SPEAKER_00: Then he said to those on his left, Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
SPEAKER_00: For I was hungry, and you gave me nothing to eat.
SPEAKER_00: I was thirsty, and you gave me nothing to drink.
SPEAKER_00: I was a stranger, and you did not invite me in.
SPEAKER_00: I needed clothes, and you did not clothe me.
SPEAKER_00: I was sick and in prison, and you did not look after me.
SPEAKER_00: They also will answer, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, or stranger, or needing clothes, or sick, or in prison, and did not help you?
SPEAKER_00: He'll reply, Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for the least of these, you did not do for me.
SPEAKER_00: Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: So notice in verse 41, he says to those in his left depart, into the eternal fire.
SPEAKER_00: Eternal meaning ongoing, fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.
SPEAKER_00: And here in verse 46, if you skip down, it says that the wicked will go into eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: So whatever you want to say about eternal life, it's everlasting, it's ongoing, it's never-ending life with God, the eternal punishment is parallel to that.
SPEAKER_00: Same word, eternal.
SPEAKER_00: So this is an ongoing, everlasting punishment.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 13, Jesus is again telling a parable where he's talking about the judgment, the parable of the wheat and the weeds, and he'll use this language of a blazing furnace.
SPEAKER_00: Verses 40 to 43, he says, This as the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age.
SPEAKER_00: The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they'll weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin in all who do evil.
SPEAKER_00: They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
SPEAKER_00: Then the righteous will shine like sun in the kingdom of their father.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.
SPEAKER_00: So we see it described as a blazing furnace, then we see weeping and gnashing of teeth.
SPEAKER_00: Weeping, because it's communicating how devastating and awful this reality is.
SPEAKER_00: And then you see gnashing of teeth.
SPEAKER_00: And I initially thought that gnashing of teeth was meant to communicate agony, like you're grinding your teeth in pain.
SPEAKER_00: But the more we did some study on this word, it seems like it shows up at times in the Old Testament, I think specifically in the Psalms, to refer to like a king that's been conquered by another king and is like gnashing their teeth in anger at this king that's conquered them.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not a communication of pain, it's a communication about like anger or hatred.
SPEAKER_00: And many commentators have said that it's it's meant to depict that those in hell, they're not remorseful, they're not sad for what they've done.
SPEAKER_00: They are angry, they're bitter, they hate God for his righteous judgment.
SPEAKER_00: And if you were to read Luke 18, the longest parable that Jesus tells about hell, you see, even in hell, the rich man is depicted as sort of still wanting to like boss Abraham around and boss Lazarus around.
SPEAKER_00: Like there's no real sense of repentance or or remorse there as well.
SPEAKER_00: Which has led many students of the Bible to suggest that even in sin, even in hell, people continue to sin.
SPEAKER_00: That every moment, every millisecond in hell, they are in sin, continuing to sin against God.
SPEAKER_00: Which at least helps me to understand why hell would be eternal.
SPEAKER_00: Because it really doesn't make sense to me, like why someone would be punished for an infinite amount of time and suffer for an infinite amount of time if they, you know, lived a life of 80 years in rebellion against God, maybe shorter than that.
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, why does it make sense that they would be separated from God for eternity?
SPEAKER_00: But what if in hell people continue to give God the middle finger and hate God, and their whole lives just continue to become more and more angry and selfish and bitter and hating and self-centered?
SPEAKER_00: Then it would make sense what hell is for an eternity.
SPEAKER_00: We also see language in Revelation 14 and Revelation 20, hell depicted as a lake of fire, and that language of fire shows up throughout the New Testament and Old Testament to describe God's judgment.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a powerful image, the image of fire, because fire is a good thing most of the time.
SPEAKER_00: Fire enables us to cook things, it keeps us warm, it brings light.
SPEAKER_00: Fire is great in the right context and with the right protection if you are able to protect yourself from the fire.
SPEAKER_00: But fire in the wrong context, on the floor, for instance, or in your house, or without the right protection, it's painful, it's it's damaging.
SPEAKER_00: And if you trace the image of fire throughout scripture, oftentimes, fire is a symbol depicting God's presence.
SPEAKER_00: God is described as being a consuming fire.
SPEAKER_00: And so I think part of the imagery of hell is meant to communicate that in hell people experience not the God's presence of blessing, but his judicial presence, his condemning presence.
SPEAKER_00: To them, God's presence is not a blessing, but it is painful, it is damaging.
SPEAKER_00: So again, I think certain ways of thinking about hell, depicting it in kind of cartoonish pictures, I think that takes the imagery too literalistically, but at the same time, this is.
SPEAKER_00: Is meant to communicate a reality, a terrifying reality.
SPEAKER_00: So we can ask, what will hell be like?
SPEAKER_00: It will be like being on fire.
SPEAKER_00: It will be physically and psychologically tormenting, agonizing.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the second, again, main image of hell in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: It's depicted as destruction, but then also depicted as torment.
SPEAKER_00: And third and finally, hell is depicted in the Bible as exile, that is, banishment from God's presence.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's depicted as outer darkness.
SPEAKER_00: And you can see why these are symbols, because it's fire, but also darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: It can be depicted as God's fiery, burning presence, but also outside of the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: These are images meant to communicate this terrible reality.
SPEAKER_00: In multiple places, Jesus describes the fate of the wicked as being outside or in the outer darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew chapter 8, Jesus says this.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about Jewish people who have rejected him as the king, as the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: He says, While the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Revelation, the final chapters, chapters 21 and 22, depicted the new creation that God will bring about when Jesus returns.
SPEAKER_00: The new creation is described as a city coming down out of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: It's a restoration of Eden.
SPEAKER_00: So you got the new Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: It's this beautiful image.
SPEAKER_00: And then in chapter 22, we see this description, verses 14 and 15.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may go through the gates into the city.
SPEAKER_00: Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
SPEAKER_00: So they are outside the new creation, outside the city.
SPEAKER_00: And then finally, we see this language in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, verses 8 and 9, really drawing together all three of these themes or these images.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says this.
SPEAKER_00: They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.
SPEAKER_00: So they're the languages they are away from the face of the Lord, but also experiencing punishment and destruction.
SPEAKER_00: Again, they're cut off from God's presence of blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Jenny and I have uh three kiddos, ten, seven, and five.
SPEAKER_00: And it's still true to this day to some extent, but especially when they were little, um, they just needed their mom's presence, and I was just chop liver.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, mom would be holding them and soothing them, and then she would have to, I don't know, like go to the bathroom, uh, for instance.
SPEAKER_00: You know, moms have to do that sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, or I have to go to the store, and she would like leave and just place them, you know, in my arms.
SPEAKER_00: Like, here'd stay with dad for just a minute, and it was mommy, I'm a mommy, you know, just like it was clearly my presence was not a gift to them, you know.
SPEAKER_00: It was, it was like a curse to them.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but her presence was a blessing to them.
SPEAKER_00: And it's still true at some level to this day.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a good picture of how God's presence is a blessing to his people.
SPEAKER_00: And the storyline of scripture, in a lot of ways, is God restoring his presence with us and giving us his presence.
SPEAKER_00: But to those who say, No, I don't want God, then the Bible depicts that they'll be cast out of his presence in a sense.
SPEAKER_00: They will not enjoy his life-giving presence for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: They'll be cut off from the presence of God, just like Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden, just like Israel was exiled from the promised land, so those who reject Jesus in this life will face an eternal exile, banished outside the new creation, and cut off from the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: So these are the three main images in Scripture for hell.
SPEAKER_00: That it is destruction, that it's torment, that it's exile.
SPEAKER_00: And I know this is heavy.
SPEAKER_00: I'm uncomfortable, I'm sweating.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully you're uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: And I know it raises tons of questions.
SPEAKER_00: It raises questions about like who goes to hell.
SPEAKER_00: And what about people we've never heard?
SPEAKER_00: And what about this people, and what about those people?
SPEAKER_00: And I get it, it's tough.
SPEAKER_00: It raises cans of cans of worms opened.
SPEAKER_00: And so I don't want to dismiss any of those questions, but we don't have time to go into all those.
SPEAKER_00: Um I think the most common question that people raise when we start talking about the doctrine of hell is this if God is love, if God is loving, how can he send people to hell?
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that God is love, so how can it be true that God both loves everyone, he is love, and yet he also sends people to hell?
SPEAKER_00: Well, let me just say, again, if you're wrestling with that, it's a good question.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be dismissive.
SPEAKER_00: If you asked me that in the lobby, I would not start lecturing you.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we would like to have a conversation and I'd ask questions and say, you know, who are you thinking of?
SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of times these questions come from people that we love, that we care deeply about.
SPEAKER_00: And we might dialogue for a little bit, but then eventually I'd want to give a response of some kind.
SPEAKER_00: And one response would sound a little bit like something my friend said, who's a who's a teacher, middle school teacher, she was nearing the end of the semester, and she had a student come up to her and say, Why are you, why are you being so mean to me?
SPEAKER_00: Why do you hate me?
SPEAKER_00: Like, why are you failing me in this class?
SPEAKER_00: Don't you know that this is gonna ruin my life?
SPEAKER_00: Don't you know that this is gonna make it so I can't play football in the fall?
SPEAKER_00: Like, don't why do you hate me?
SPEAKER_00: Why are you being so mean to me?
SPEAKER_00: Why are you failing me?
SPEAKER_00: And she responded, she said, I am not failing you.
SPEAKER_00: You have chosen not to turn your assignments in on time.
SPEAKER_00: You've chosen not to retake your tests, you've chosen not to come to my office and get help, you have rejected every offer of help that I've given you, and so I am not failing you.
SPEAKER_00: You are choosing to fail my class.
SPEAKER_00: And I think there's a similar response when it comes to this question: why does God send people to hell?
SPEAKER_00: In a sense, God does not send people to hell.
SPEAKER_00: We are all headed towards hell because of our choices, because of our rebellion, because of our sin, because of our self-centeredness, because of our idolatry of worshiping other things instead of God.
SPEAKER_00: God loves us and he offers us a way out.
SPEAKER_00: And more than that, he offers us his love, a relationship with him, union with Christ, transformation into the kind of humans that we know we ought to be, but we aren't, and a life forever with him in a new creation.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's on offer.
SPEAKER_00: But we have to choose it.
SPEAKER_00: We have to receive it for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: So, why does a loving God send people to hell?
SPEAKER_00: In a sense, because, well, we send ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: The second response I might offer would be that this question, why would a loving God send people to hell, it's really trying to pit two attributes of God against each other.
SPEAKER_00: If we look throughout scripture, we see God is described in many different attributes, but theologians have always said that God is consistent within himself.
SPEAKER_00: He always acts consistently within his attributes.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not like sometimes he's loving and sometimes he's just, sometimes he's merciful, but sometimes he's holy.
SPEAKER_00: No, he's always all of them, all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: You and I were not that consistent, but God is.
SPEAKER_00: And so his righteousness, his justice leads him to do the right thing and punish sin for eternity, and cut people off from his life for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: And his love honors each person's choice and gives them what they ultimately want.
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SPEAKER_00: S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis said something like, Hell will be locked from the inside.
SPEAKER_00: What he meant by that is there's no one in hell who is like, oh man, I wish I weren't here.
SPEAKER_00: They are self-centered and they've chosen this for themselves.
SPEAKER_00: And he said this in the book, The Great Divorce.
SPEAKER_00: He said, There are only two kinds of people.
SPEAKER_00: Those who say, Thy will be done to God, or those to whom God says in the end, Thy will be done.
SPEAKER_00: All that are in hell, choose it.
SPEAKER_00: So again, God is love, and yet He's also just.
SPEAKER_00: Now, again, I know this is heavy.
SPEAKER_00: I've been thinking about this for a couple weeks.
SPEAKER_00: It has uh just been a heavy few weeks, and I'm sure you're feeling that heaviness or that weight, let me just offer a few responses.
SPEAKER_00: What do we do with this clear biblical teaching on hell?
SPEAKER_00: The first response is that if you're here and you're a follower of Jesus, you would say you're a Christian, you're a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Then if there is any part of you that as you hear about hell that gets puffed up with pride and criticism and judgmentalism towards other people, like you know where everyone else is going and you want to point your finger, if there's any part of you that's like, yeah, pastor, you get them, you tell them about hell, then I would say, Whoa, hold on.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know that you've wrestled deeply enough with the doctrine of hell.
SPEAKER_00: Because what scripture teaches that each and every one of us deserve hell.
SPEAKER_00: So we have no leg to stand on.
SPEAKER_00: That each and every one of us, if we do come to Christ, it's because of God's grace, it's because of his mercy.
SPEAKER_00: So there's no sense of pride, there's no sense of arrogance within us.
SPEAKER_00: We need to humble ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And we should carefully examine our hearts and our lives.
SPEAKER_00: If you say you're a follower of Jesus, does your life demonstrate that?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you just playing at going to church?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you just playing at being a Christian?
SPEAKER_00: This is serious business, and so we should humble ourselves, we should examine our own hearts.
SPEAKER_00: The second response is that we should tell others about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I gotta be honest with you, and just confess, I too often, when I'm around people who don't know Jesus, this is just yesterday, I was with family members and at a party.
SPEAKER_00: Too often there's this knee-jerk reaction within me to just sort of be like, ah, they're probably gonna be fine.
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't wanna bring something up, I don't want to be uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: This, you know, I have to like live with these people for the next however many years.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to make my neighbor think weirdly of me, I don't want to bring something up.
SPEAKER_00: This is just ah la la.
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
SPEAKER_00: They're probably fine.
SPEAKER_00: They're probably gonna be fine.
SPEAKER_00: And there's some truth to that, there's a sliver of truth there, which is that God is bigger than us, he doesn't need us to save other people.
SPEAKER_00: But if we really love people and we really believe that they're headed towards hell, then we gotta tell them about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So it should it should drive us to be more bold, to be more courageous in sharing our faith.
SPEAKER_00: And the third and final response is that if you're here this morning and you've never said yes to Jesus as your Lord, as your Savior, maybe you realized in the last 30 minutes that you're like, I don't want to go to hell.
SPEAKER_00: And this is not this is not a scare tactic, this is not trying to manipulate you, but this is seriously what the Bible teaches.
SPEAKER_00: And I love you, and God loves you, and he wants you to spend eternity with him.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you that that's on offer today.
SPEAKER_00: If you would give your life to him as your Lord, as your Savior, then he will declare you innocent and rescue you and begin a relationship with you now that leads on into eternity.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to give you a chance to do that this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna ask you to bow your heads, ask you to close your eyes.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna ask anybody to raise their hand or to come up front.
SPEAKER_00: But if you need to do business with God, I'd invite you to just have a conversation with him, talk to him right now, and just say something like this in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: God, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry for how I've sinned against you.
SPEAKER_00: I've broken your commandments, I've broken your heart, I've been selfish, I have hurt others, and I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your son Jesus, who came to live the life that I can never live, die the death I deserved to die.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be made right with you.
SPEAKER_00: Would you forgive me?
SPEAKER_00: Would you come into my life?
SPEAKER_00: Transform me from the inside out, turn my life over to you.
SPEAKER_00: I want a relationship with you now and for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: If that's you this morning and you've never said yes to Jesus before, but today you've begun a relationship with him, please don't leave without telling someone.
SPEAKER_00: We would love to talk with you and help you learn to follow Jesus the rest of your life.
SPEAKER_00: But for my brothers and sisters in Christ in the room, let me also pray before we respond in worship.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we do humble ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And ask that you give us an ever-deepening gratitude for the salvation that we have through Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Would you examine our hearts, Father, and show us where there is lingering sin, lingering idolatry that we need to address?
SPEAKER_00: Would you make us more and more courageous, more and more bold to share you with others?
SPEAKER_00: And as we sing about the hope that we have in Jesus, would you receive it as a sweet, sweet sound to your ears?
SPEAKER_00: We love you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody send Amen.