Matthew 25:31-34
31 – When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His throne in heavenly glory.
32 – All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
33 – He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on His left.
34 – Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.’
Matthew 25 : 41
41 – Then He will say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’
Matthew 25:46
46 – Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.
As you know, for the past few weeks I’ve been preaching a series of sermons dealing with the subject of personal evangelism. The first week we looked at some basic principles that make it possible for us to share our faith. The next Sunday we took a walk down the Romans Road together so we could become familiar with that tried but true evangelistic tool. Then, last Sunday we finished the series by focusing on how to share our personal testimony.
Well, for the next few weeks I want us to take this issue of personal evangelism as step further, by preparing ourselves to answer the questions that inevitably come up when we share our faith. Next week we’ll deal with the question: If God is so good, why is there so much suffering in the world? On November 11 we’ll develop a reply to those who ask whether or not the Bible is trustworthy. And today I want us to answer a question that many non-Christians ask, namely: Why would a loving God send people to Hell?
But, before we get around to dealing with this hot topic let me point out that when we are sharing our faith with a friend it’s normal them to ask questions. In fact, it can be a sign that the person you are witnessing to really is interested in learning the truth. After all, that is what a seeker does. They seek the truth. We should also remember that in Scripture Jesus, Who referred to Himself as THE TRUTH, encouraged us to ask questions. In the Sermon on the Mount He said, Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. So, don’t worry or be defensive when someone asks you to answer tough questions. And, you know, not only is it okay for them to ask questions. It’s also okay for you not to have all the answers. There may be times that you have to say, I don’t know the answer to that one, but I promise you this. We will find the answer together. And then, there are other times when you may need to say, I appreciate your question on this issue but there are some things we honestly don’t understand on this side of eternity. I have learned to trust God for the things I don’t comprehend. I don’t know the answer you seek but I have put my faith in the One Who does…and I encourage you to do the same.
One other thing I want to mention as we begin this series is that my main resource in preparing these messages is Lee Strobel’s book, The Case For Faith. In this book Stroebel deals with not three but EIGHT of the most popular questions that come up in evangelism and I would encourage you to pick up a copy of his book and read it for yourself. It is a great tool that will help equip you to …be prepared to give an answer for the reason that hope is in you….
Okay, back to our question for this morning: Why would a loving God send people to Hell? Now, many people we encounter as we share our faith wonder about this. It seems unfair-cruel even-to think that God would sentence people to an eternal damnation. Chuck Templeton, former evangelist, turned atheist once said, I couldn’t hold someone’s hand to a fire for a moment. Not an instant! How could a loving God, just because you don’t obey Him and do what He wants, torture you forever-not allowing you to die, but forcing you to continue in that pain for eternity? There is no criminal who would do this!
Well, what about it? Is Templeton correct? Does our loving God send people to hell? To prepare ourselves to deal with this question it is important for us to go back and reacquaint ourselves with exactly what the Bible says about Hell. I say this because the Bible-God’s written Word-is our source of authority, not how we feel about a certain issue.
1. And the first thing we should note is that God’s Word tells us that Hell IS indeed a REAL place.
Hell is not a myth. It’s not a place invented by film directors to spice up their horror movies or a story created by parents to scare their children into obedience. No, throughout the Bible we are taught that Hell does exist. Psalm 9:17 says, The wicked shall be turned into Hell, and all the nations that forget God. Daniel 12:2 says, And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Revelation 20:15 says, And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the Lake of Fire.
Many people do not realize it but the truth is that the greatest preacher on hell fire and damnation who ever lived was not Jonathan Edwards or Billy Sunday or Billy Graham. It was Jesus Christ Himself. In fact, our Lord had more to say about Hell than all the other Biblical writers combined. He also had more to say about Hell than He did about Heaven. He repeatedly warned people not to go to this horrible, place where Matthew 8:12 says, …there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 8:12) So, no doubt about it, Hell is an actual place.
Sometime ago a traffic officer gave a ticket to a woman in Brooklyn. And when the officer handed it to her through the window, she snapped it out of his hands and said, You can go straight to Hell! So the officer took her to court. A few days later they appeared before the judge and he dismissed the officer’s complaint about the woman’s language. The judge said, and I quote, It wasn’t a command, or a wish, but a statement of fact, for going to Hell is a possibility. It think this woman deserved punishment for her statement to the officer but the judge was correct. Going to Hell is a possibility because it is a very real place. Paul Powell writes, It is sobering to consider that every person who has ever lived, every person now living, and every person who will ever live shall continue to live throughout all eternity either in Heaven or Hell.
And you know, I think that deep inside most people know that Hell is real. This is one reason HELL is such a popular curse word. I mean think about it. Why not say, What the JAIL are you doing? or I sure as SCHOOL will. And when you get angry at someone why not say, Why don’t you go to CHICAGO! We use the word, Hell instead, because the words, jail, school, and Chicago, have no real sting. When it comes right down to it, in the English language, HELL is the strongest expletive available because inside we all know that it is a real place of ultimate deprivation, devastation, fear, torment, punishment, suffering, and loss. It’s the BEST word to use when wishing the WORST possible fate on another person.
2. The Bible also tells us that Hell is an ETERNAL place.
In other words, there is no second chance once you get there. There are no exit doors in HELL. As the rich man in Jesus’ story of Lazarus discovered, between heaven and hell …a great chasm has been FIXED… so that those who want to leave cannot do so. (Luke 16:26 ) The word fixed here teaches that in hell everything is permanent and immovable. There is no growth, no change, no repentance, and worst of all, no hope. As long as there is life, there is hope but when death comes, all hope is gone. As Proverbs 11:7 says, When a wicked man dies, his hope perishes; all he expected from his power comes to nothing. This is because this life has an end but eternity lasts forever. Dr. James Kennedy writes, Every Hebrew and Greek word which is used to describe the eternality of the existence of God and the eternality of the blessedness of the redeemed in heaven is also used to describe the eternality of the sufferings of the lost in hell.
Now, some feel that God should give the people in hell-people who have experienced its horrors-a second chance. But this is contrary to the teachings of the New Testament as I mentioned ago in referring to the story Jesus told of the rich man and Lazarus. In his book Strobel asks Dr. J. P. Moreland, professor of philosophy and ethics at the Talbot School of Theology, to deal with that issue. Moreland states that God values our free will too much to give us a second chance once we have seen hell. He says that any decision someone in Hell would make would not be a real genuine free choice. It would be coerced. It would be like holding a paddle over one of our children and saying, You will say you’re sorry to your sister for wearing her dress without asking. Any apology under those circumstances would not be a real apology. It would be just avoidance. And people who would choose a second chance would not really be choosing God, His kingdom, or His ways. They’d be making a prudent choice to avoid judgement only-not a choice to follow God. Also, they would not be suited for life in His kingdom. They would have been forced to be a part of something they had initially refused. In C. S. Lewis’ novel The Great Divorce, people in Hell are given a chance to come to heaven but when they do no one wants to stay, simply because they can’t stand the beauty and goodness that is there. The grass cuts their feet. The water is painful to them. And, like people coming out of a dark cave whose eyes never re-adjust to the bright sunshine, they flee back to the comfortable dreariness of Hell. Perhaps this is why the Bible teaches that Hell is a forever place.
3. And then as I said a moment ago Scripture also teaches that Hell is a place of SUFFERING and despair.
Now, perhaps to avoid this uncomfortable truth, we joke about the suffering in Hell a great deal. I love Gary Larson’s FAR SIDE cartoons and he has a whole line of strips that do this, like the one which shows demons reviewing the contents of Hell’s suggestion box and laughing, as if the devil would ever take someone’s suggestion to improve the place or the one that shows a man entering Heaven and an angel says, Welcome to Heaven. Here’s your harp. The next strip shows a man entering Hell and a demon says, Welcome to Hell. Here’s your accordion. And then, do you remember the TV commercial that shows an evil man who dies and finds himself in a beautiful home? He goes in the kitchen and there is a plate of chocolate chip cookies hot and just out of the oven. He shoves one into his mouth and decides to get a glass of cold milk to wash it down. When he opens the refrigerator door he sees that it is full of cartons of milk. But as he tries to pour himself a glass he finds that all the cartons are empty and we all laugh because we know how horrible it is to have cookies but no milk to go with them.
But all these jokes are not really funny at all because the real Hell contains nothing that is worth laughing about. The Bible describes Hell as a place of unquenchable and everlasting fire. (Mark 9:43, Matthew 25:41 ). Revelation 20:10 says that is a lake of fire and brimstone. In Mark 9:48 Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah (Is. 66:24) and describes Hell as a place, …where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. Jude 13 says that Hell is the blackness of darkness forever.
Now, most conservative theologians believe as I do that this is all figurative language. The Bible is not saying that Hell is literally a place of fire and brimstone. And, I believe this for three reasons:
a. First of all, the Bible is full of symbolic language.
In Strobel’s book Dr. Moreland, a conservative scholar, says, In Hebrews 12:29 God is called a consuming fire. Yet nobody thinks God is a cosmic Bunsen burner.
Using the flame imagery is a way of saying He’s a God of Judgement. On the night of His arrest Jesus ate the Passover meal with His disciples. He held up the bread and said, This is My body. Then He took the cup and referring to its contents said, This is My blood. Now, Jesus did not mean that the bread and the wine were His literal blood but rather that they were symbolic of the fact that His body was about to be nailed to a cross where He would shed His precious blood for the sins of the world. In John’s gospel it is recorded that Jesus described Himself as, …the True Vine and as the Bread of Life but that does not mean he was actually a plant or a loaf of bread. The book of Revelation says that when Christ returns He is going to have a big sword coming out of His mouth. But nobody thinks that this means our Lord will be unable to speak without choking on it’s blade. No, the figure of the sword stands for the word of God in judgment. And in a similar fashion, the descriptions of hell as a place of fire are also symbolic of a horror that would be infinitely worse than a place filled with brimstone and constant flames.
b. We also know the word pictures in Scripture that describe Hell as a place of fire are symbolic because they make no sense.
For example, Hell can’t be a place of utter darkness if it is a place of constantly burning flames because the flames of course would shed light.
c. And then…a third reason I believe these words are symbols is that they referred to real places in and around Israel in the time of Christ.
One word in the New Testament that is used for Hell is, Gehenna and it alluded to to the Valley of Gehenna outside the southeast walls of Jerusalem. This had been a place of worship for the heathen god Molech, which included burning babies alive. Because of their cries it was known as the Valley of Lamentation,…which is what Gehenna literally means. II Kings 23:10 tells us that this horrible practice was abolished by King Josiah, after which the place came to be used by Jewish people as the city dump, a place for garbage disposal, including the refuse of the city, the bodies of animals, and even the bodies of criminals who had no one to give them a burial. A fire was kept going there continually for sanitary purposes. So, the Valley of Gehenna came to be used as a symbol of the awful reality of Hell.
In Mark 9:48 when Jesus described Hell as a place where worms constantly eat people’s flesh, He was referring to the place outside the temple where the blood and fat from the thousands of animals that were sacrificed each day would gather in a pool. In this horrible place worms were constantly ingesting all that rotting flesh. And in using this metaphor Jesus was saying hell is worse than that disgusting place outside the city walls.
When the Bible talks about Hell being a place of darkness it is saying that it is a place of hopelessness. Try to imagine what that would be like. I mean if you have ever experienced an attack of anxiety or depression you can always tell yourself that this feeling of dark despair will pass. You can tell yourself to hang on because it will end and things will look better. But in Hell, that tactic would not work because the anxiety, the hopeless despair, will not end. It is a place of constant darkness in this sense.
Now, please don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying that I believe Hell to be LESS horrible than a lake of fire. No, I’m saying that Hell is much WORSE than that.
All these symbolic words and phrases used in Scripture to describe Hell are metaphors to help us see that Hell is a place so awful that no one in his right mind would want to go there. In this fashion the Bible teaches that Hell is the worst place we could possibly imagine.
This week I came across the descriptions of hell by several conservative theologians. I think their comments go a long way to helping us to begin to understand how bad a place Hell really is.
STRONG describes hell as, the loss of all good, whether physical or spiritual.
ERWIN LUTZER says that the fire of hell is, …the fire of unfulfilled passion, the fire of desires that are never satisfied. Perpetually burning lusts never subside there and the tortured conscience burns but is never sated or appeased. Hell, then is the raw soul joined to an indestructible body, exposed to its own sin for eternity. Hell is the place of unquenchable, raging, unmet emotional needs, without painkillers or sedation. Hell is a place of eternal regret.
DOROTHY SAYERS describes Hell as a place that is full of people angrily beating and biting one another because they like that sort of thing. They want to be cross and miserable. She says, They enjoy chewing things to pieces. It must be part of the frustration of Hell that there is nothing good there to chew up. The good is beyond their reach so they can only chew one another.
The poet CATHERINE DANGELL describes Hell like this:
- Hell! The prison house of despair.
- Here are some things that won’t be there;
- No flowers will bloom on the banks of Hell,
- No beauties of nature we love so well;
- No comforts of home, music and song,
- No friendship of joy will be found in that throng;
- No children to brighten the long, weary night;
- No love nor peace, nor one ray of light!
- No blood-washed soul with face beaming bright,
- No loving smile in that region of night;
- No mercy, no pity, pardon, nor grace,
- No water; O God, what a terrible place!
- The pangs of the lost no human can tell,
- Not one moment’s ease-there is no rest in Hell
I like Mrs. Dangell’s description of the things that are not in Hell. But you know, she left one thing out because the thing that really makes Hell…Hell….The WORST thing about this place is that GOD will not be there. Our Heavenly Father’s comforting, abiding, loving presence and influence will not be in Hell. Now, imagine how horrible that will be. James 1:6 tells us that God is the Author of every good and perfect gift and so to be eternally separated from His presence is to be eternally separated from all things good and beautiful.
Now, do you begin to see WHY the Bible describes Hell as a place of eternal flames? It does this to help us to understand that Hell is a place of unimaginable suffering and despair and knowing all this should be a real motivator for both non-Christians and Christians.
First of all, a Biblical understanding of Hell should compel us AS BELIEVERS to take every opportunity to share our experience of what God has done in our lives and what He waits to do in the lives of all who will accept Him. General William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, said, If I had my way I would not give any of my workers a three-years training in a college, but I would put each of them in Hell for twenty-four hours, the best training for earnest preaching you could have.
Knowing how horrible a place Hell is should move us to compassion for the lost. We should run to them, sharing our faith, as a fireman races to rescue someone from a burning building. The thought that someone would spend eternity in this place should break our hearts. Robert Dale once said, The only man I can listen to preaching on hell is D. L. Moody, because I have never heard him talk of it without breaking down and weeping. A Biblically based perception of Hell should motivate us to compassion for the lost; it should force us to renew our efforts to bring more and more people to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior.
And you know, the horrors of Hell should also motivate the NON-CHRISTIANS as well. It should compel them to embrace a personal faith in Christ. Vance Havner said his father was converted by the preaching of a hair-raising sermon that scared him into the kingdom of God. Then he said, Such preaching is discouraged these days but it is better to scare men into heaven than to lull them into hell. Better shocked than stupefied.
Now, you’ve probably noticed that I still haven’t answered the question of the day so let’s get to it. Does God send people to this horrible eternal place known as Hell?
Well, when someone asks that question they are starting out with the wrong assumption. You see, Hell is not a place that God created out of anger or frustration with man. It is not a place where a sadistic tyrant takes out his frustration on helpless creatures. Hell is a place where persons are allowed to live with the consequences of their own choices, dire as they may be. You see the most important thing for people to understand in dealing with this question…
4. ….is that the Bible teaches that Hell, is a place where people go as a result of THEIR willful CHOICE…not God’s.
As Isaiah 59:2 says, It is our sin…not God…that separates us from Him. God doesn’t send anyone to Hell. He hates that place and the only thing He hates more is for people to choose to go there. II Peter 3:9 says that God …is not willing that ANY should perish. The very purpose in sending His Son to die on Calvary’s cross was so that we might be saved from Hell. God has done all that He can do to save us, so any person who goes to Hell goes there against the will of God. C. S. Lewis has said that in the end there are just two kinds of people: those who say to God, Thy will be done. and enter into the joy of the Lord, and those to whom God says with tears, Thy will be done, and lets them walk into the dark. The decision to enter Heaven or Hell is ours to make. That is how seriously God takes our freedom. That’s how much He loves us. Ours is a world in which sin is allowed and salvation is not coerced. You see, precisely because God is love….not in spite of it…Hell is possible. Those in Hell are there because they refused or ignored God’s love; they are solely responsible for their condition. God does not send man to hell. Sin does. And man sends himself in choosing sin. As Lewis also said, If the doors of hell are locked, they are locked from the inside.
You see, Hell is more than a punishment..It is the end of a path that we choose to take when we reject the salvation and forgiveness that Jesus offers us and in that choice continue to live our lives apart from God. This means that non-Christian people are headed for hell even while living. They are already experiencing separation from God. This reminds me of the story I read once about a man who fell down the elevator shaft of a very tall building. About half way down a friend shouted, How’s it going? And as he fell past the man replied, So far so good! People are so busy with life in this fallen world of ours that they don’t realize that even now they are falling. It’s just that they haven’t hit bottom yet. We are all born in sin…born damned….on our way down to death and destruction. God is not cruel. He is merciful and we know this because He offers us a most amazing merciful deal while we are still alive and falling. Those who face hell do so because they reject this deal. They say No thanks to the salvation offered through Jesus Christ.
So, the answer is NO. God does not send people to Hell. Men and women send themselves there. Hell is primarily a place for people who would not want to go to heaven-people who in their decision to reject Christ say they would prefer to spend eternity away from God. Renowned theologian D. A. Carson says,
Hell is not a place where people are consigned because they were pretty good blokes, but they just didn’t believe the right stuff. They’re consigned there, first and foremost, because they defy their Maker and want to be at the center of the universe. Hell is not filled with people who have already repented, only God isn’t gentle enough or good enough to let them out. It’s filled with people who for all eternity STILL want to be the center of the universe and who persist in their God-defying rebellion.
Well, what about you? Where are you headed at this moment? If you see that you are headed in the wrong direction, then listen. At this very moment Jesus is reaching out to save you, to forgive you of your sin and bring you into close relationship with God. God will forgive any sin that we ask Him to but He will not forgive our sinful choice to reject Christ. Understand, this is not a choice you can avoid. Refusing to choose is the same thing as choosing to say NO. to God. So…don’t put this off. Decide now to reach out to Jesus. Ask Him to come into your heart and life as Lord and Savior. And then, if you are a Christian here this morning, you may see your need to go to a friend or family member, someone who is not a Christian, and is headed for this horrible place. You may want to come forward and ask me to pray with you for this person. And if you are looking for a church home, a place where you can deepen your closeness to God, and if you feel so led, come and join us. However God leads, won’t you come as we stand and sing?