Dispelling more myths about hell

Today, Fritz will be playing "mythbuster" to further folklore about hell, looking at them through the filter of the truth of God's Word. 

Give a listen to see if these myths will be "busted"!

"Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path" (Psalm 119:105)

Transcript

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Good morning everyone, and welcome to Fifteen Minutes with Fritz, where Scripture meets the sidewalk. Last week we began dispelling myths about hell, specifically that hell is not the devil's headquarters. He will never rule hell, he will only suffer like everyone else doomed to spend eternity there. He is not there now, but will arrive after he tries one last time to conquer the Lord's people at the close of the millennial kingdom. He is currently prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour, therefore we need to be self controlled and alert. Our book The one hundred most asked questions about heaven, hell and the afterlife has a few more mythical legends we want to look at, so today we're going to hold them up to the pages of scripture to see if they are true or if they can be debunked. The first one is this hell is only a scare tactic designed to enforce certain behaviors. In other words, the church teaches about hell to frighten us into being better people, to scare us into conforming to the traditions and teachings of the church. This is actually a pretty common technique. Certainly in the political realm we get exposed to it all the time. How many times have we heard if you vote for the other candidate, it will result in economic ruin for our city, state or country. Or voting for the other side means the Constitution itself will be violated. The other candidate is a threat to democracy itself. Candidates are generating fear of what will happen if you vote for the other guy. In the world of advertising, another fear tactic is used called FOMO fear of missing out. How many times have you seen the words on eBay or Amazon only two left in stock or sale ends in twelve minutes? You will miss out on the deal of a lifetime if you don't act now. That fear motivates us to act now rather than when we're actually ready. My wife had an interesting fear tactic pop up on her phone the other day. Infection found. Click on this link to repair it. The ad touches a nerve about the fear of losing all our data, and so it compels us to click on a link that actually downloads the malware that causes you to lose all your data. Clever, but catastrophic. And so we ask the question Is this the technique the church is using when it talks about hell? Or is hell a real place we should avoid at all costs? Let's see what the word of truth has to say about it. Jesus spoke about the dangers of hell many times. He used hyperbole, a deliberate extreme exaggeration to emphasize the point about how important it is to avoid hell. In Matthew chapter five, he said 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. This is not to be taken literally, but he is highlighting the extreme danger of hell. He also instructed his disciples not to be afraid of man, but to be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell. In other words, hell is not just a dark place with annoying people surrounding us making our lives miserable. It's a place where the body and the soul are literally destroyed. Finally, he warned us not to be locked into a desire for worldly fame and fortune. What good is it, he said, for a man to gain the whole world yet forfeit his soul? In other words, ignoring God and pursuing riches in this world will secure our eternity in hell. It's simply not worth it. So if Jesus spent a sizable amount of his limited time on earth warning us about the dangers of hell, we'd better take notice and avoid hell at all costs. It's not just a scare tactic, it's a fact. Let's move on to our second myth. Hell is reserved solely for the worst evildoers. This is an interesting one because it just makes sense. Even if you don't believe there should be a hell for normal people like you and me, we can easily justify in our mind's eye that a place like that should exist for the worst that humanity has produced. When we think of Adolf Hitler who organized the murder of six million people just because they were Jewish, we believe he deserves to suffer in a place like hell. Joseph Stalin was responsible for between six and twenty million deaths in Russia from political executions, forced labor camps, and famine resulting from his ill conceived socialist practices. He deserves to be punished for his actions. These men and others like them deserve eternal punishment, and hell sounds like just the right place for them. But before we settle simply on our human conclusions, let's see what the Bible says about evil people like Hitler and Stalin. The apostle Paul addressed this topic in the first chapter of the book of Romans, where he referred to them as people with a depraved mind doing what ought not to be done. Another translation said they became slaves of their degenerate minds and performed unmentionable deeds. Paul goes on to say they have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. And I love how he closes his argument they invent ways of doing evil. And so the apostle Paul would agree that these people are evil and that they deserve to be punished. But if we stop here, we've missed something very important. Notice how Paul described the minds of these evil people. He said they had depraved minds. When I think of the word depraved, I think about someone who is morally corrupt or wicked, someone who is perverted, vile, warped, and twisted. And yes, they certainly are. But in the Greek language the word Paul used for depraved is a word that means failing the test. It means someone is unfit for something because they did not pass the exam. That's an interesting perspective. How many times have you received a test back from your teacher with a great big red F written across the top along with a note that said see me after class? That happened to me more often than I care to admit, and it's not something anyone wants to see. But getting an F makes sense for these vile people, doesn't it? By any one anyone's cultural or religious beliefs, their actions were wrong. They failed the standards of proper behavior regardless of where you live, and they deserve to fail the exam. But before jumping to that conclusion, we need to look closer at the exam they took before they arrived in hell. You see, the exam paper Paul refers to is different from any other tests. It isn't a list of multiple choice questions. It doesn't contain any essay questions to justify their actions and policies that resulted in the deaths of millions of people. It doesn't want to know how they deceive people or how their craving for absolute power drove them to eliminate anyone who disagreed with them. No, Paul's test actually has only one question. One question that will decide whether they pass or fail the test. One question that will determine whether they spend eternity in heaven or eternity in hell. What's the question? Well here it is. When you heard the good news about Jesus Christ, how did you respond? When the gospel was clearly laid out for you, did you react by repenting of your sin and accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior? Or did you close your heart one more time and seal your fate for all eternity? That is the only thing that matters, the only answer that God wants to know. You see, the saddest thing about hell, our book says, is that there will be more unrepentant barbers and plumbers and middle school teachers, bricklayers, airline pilots and accountants in hell than tyrants such as Hitler and Stalin. Yes, Hitler and Stalin deserve to be in hell, but they won't be there because of their horrific crimes. They will be there because they failed Paul's one question test and scorned God's mercy and rejected Christ. So both of our myths are debunked today. The Bible isn't teaching about hell as a scare tactic to change our behavior. It truly is a place of suffering and God does not want anyone to go there. I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the sovereign Lord. Repent and live. And hell is not reserved just for the worst evildoers. It is reserved for everyone who rejects the free gift of salvation offered by God and choose and those who choose their own path and their own destiny. My prayer today is that you will take out Paul's test paper and remember that 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, that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and that all who believe in his name will receive the right to become a child of God. Hell is not something we have to fear when we accept the only correct answer to the simple one question test. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. And that name is Jesus. Let's pray. Lord, I know I am a sinner who deserves the punishment of eternity in hell. But I am grateful for the boundless love that Jesus has for me, that he was willing to go to the cross just to save a sinner like me. May I never forget that great sacrifice, may I never lose sight of what it cost you to save my soul. May I live in the light of Christ, reflecting his love to those around me. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy. To the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power, and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord. This is the end of our podcast, but it's not the end of our story. Thank you for listening.